70 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIRTY. 
Golden Plover is said by the native fowlers to breed ; and this is not 
impossible, as it does so in much more southern latitudes, and the 
ground is as good an imitation as our Province can afford of the 
breeding grounds frequented by its Huropean cousin, 
Of the Hematopodide (misprinted Heemantopodides in my 
paper) I have seen a good deal since it was written. I have veri- 
fied the presence of the Crab Plover by inspection of a fresh speci- 
men brought in to me from Nagaum Sands, and have received 
seven of the Oyster-catcher, which deserves remark. 
Jerdon gives the truncated bill as a characteristic of the genus 
Heematopus, of which he mentions that ‘several species are 
recorded, chiefly from America, one or two from Australia, and one 
from Africa.” He identifies our bird with that of Hurope; and gives 
the colouration of its bill as “ orange-yellow dusky anteriorly.” 
These were the colours in all my specimens; and those of their 
plumage agreed with what ho says of young birds before and after 
the first month ; but in no case was the bill truncated. 
I have several times killed and handled adult specimens in Ire- 
land, and in all of these the truncation was as marked as in a clay 
tobacco-pipe broken short off, and the colour a bright-red. Mr. 
Murray, in the “ Vertebrates of Sind,” gives this colour (which f 
have not seen in India), but does not notice the truncation of the 
beak. 
The editor of the Feld in a short answer to a note on the 
subject, suggests that this may be the result of wear in use. 
Lieutenant Barnes, whom I had the privilege of consulting, appeared 
to lean to this view ; but in his book he has followed Jerdon. 
The upshot of the matter is, so far, that the truncation of the beak 
must disappear, as a generic character, from future notices of the 
species. If it is to be retained as a specific character, our bird is 
different from that of Europe, as our Golden Plover is; for a mere 
result of wear cannot be treated as identifying either a genus or a 
species, and if this is the cause of truncation, our bird may well 
enough be identical with Hamatopus ostralegus, and the colowration 
of the bill characteristic of the young bird only. The bird is a 
permanent resident, and probably breeds here. 
Amongst Longirostres I have lately obtained the Avocet Sand- 
piper (Terekia cinerea) for the first time. The specimen was one 
of a small flock on the Nagotna Creek, and I have observed a dozen 
Avocets (Recurvirostra avocetta) on the salt-pans near Pen. 
