CHARADRIID&. 553 
THE SOCIABLE PLOVER. 
VANELLUS GREGARIUS (Pallas). 
In the autumn of the year 1860 or thereabouts, an immature 
example of this south-eastern species was shot from among a flock 
of Lapwings, near St. Michael’s-on-Wyre in Lancashire; and having 
been subsequently placed in a case with many other stuffed birds 
which impeded the view, it was at first erroneously recorded as a 
Cream-coloured Courser. It afterwards came into the possession 
of Mr. W. H. Doeg, when it was correctly identified, and was ex- 
hibited by the late Mr. Seebohm at a meeting of the Zoological 
Society of London on November zoth 1888. Its pedigree appears 
to be perfectly satisfactory. 
The Sociable Plover has not yet been observed in Heligoland or 
the northern part of Western Europe, but as long ago as March 
1838 an adult (figured by Bonaparte) was shot near Rome, where a 
young female was obtained in November 1872, while a third example 
was killed near Sienna in the spring of 1856. On the Riviera an 
adult male was taken near Nice in April 1883. At Cadiz, in 
February 1868, I found in the market a bird—too advanced for 
preservation—in the plumage of the first year, a stage then little 
