CHARADEIUS. 



167 



cal distribu- 

 tion. 



Allied 

 species. 



to the end of the shortest secondary ; and that from the tip of the shortest primary to the 

 tip of the longest is equal to or greater than that to the carpal joint. In both cases it is 

 the reverse in C. peroni, whose comparatively longer secondaries and shorter primaries 

 prove that it has been a resident species for a much longer period than the two resident 

 forms of C. cantianus ^. 



The Malay Sand-Plover is a resident in Java, Borneo, Celebes, the Philippine Islands, Geograph 

 and probably some of the other islands of the Malay Archipelago. There are examples in 

 the Leyden Museum from Semao, a small island off the west coast of Timor, which appears 

 to be the eastern limit of its range. I have examples from Borneo and Java. Lord 

 Tweeddale recorded it from the Philippine Islands (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, pp. 711, 344), 

 and also from Celebes (Trans. Zool. Soc. viii. p. 90). 



It is rather a smaller bird than the Kentish Plover, the length of wing from carpal 

 joint varying from 4-1 to 3-0 inch. Its small size is probably not connected with the fact 

 that it lives upon islands and not upon a continent, but has doubtless some relation to 

 another fact in its history, that it belongs to a somewhat arctic genus, and has deci'eased 

 in size in the uncongenial climate of the tropics. It has several points of resemblance to 

 C pecuarius — the black nachal collar, the mottled appearance produced by the pale margins 

 of the feathers of the upper parts, and the proportionally long and slender tarsi. In many 

 respects it is so exactly intermediate between the Common Ringed Plover {Charadrius 

 hiaticula) and the Kentish Sand-Plover (C. cantianus) that it might almost be mistaken for 

 a hybrid between the two. It is nevertheless a perfectly distinct species. The colour of 

 its tail, the three outer feathers on each side unspotted white, shows its affinity to the latter 

 species ; whilst its pale legs and blade as well as white rings round the neck exactly resemble 

 the former, except that the black ring seldom meets on the breast (a peculiarity also found 

 in C. melodus). 



I have been unable to find any allusion to the habits of this species, which doubtless 

 resemble those of the Kentish Plover, though they appear never to have been described. 

 There are few parts of the world from which it is more difficult to obtain skins of birds, or 

 of which less information respecting the habits of their feathered inhabitants is forthcoming, 

 than the Dutch colonies ; and this is all the more remarkable because the ornithological 

 department of the Museum of Leyden is the third, if not the second, in importance of all 

 the ornithological collections in the world. 



' Harting's identification of Oharadrius peroni with C. dealbahis, cautiously quoted by Legge (Birds of 

 Ceylon, p. 948), and rashly adopted by me (British Birds, iii. p. 25), is a blunder which neither of us ought to 

 have committed after the publication of Lord Walden's excellent plate in the ' Transactions of the Zoological 

 Society,' and the care which Swinhoe took (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, p. 139) to point out the difference between 

 the two species. 



