I90 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



but most of the birds seen during that month are 

 travellers to warmer latitudes. 



It is a shy and exceedingly active bird^ somewhat 

 larger than the Golden Plover in size, and in the 

 Plata district is usually called Chorlo canela, from 

 the prevailing cinnamon-red of the plumage. It is 

 distinguished in the family it belongs to by the great 

 length of its straight, slender, probe-like bill, unlike 

 that of any other Plover; and it also has other 

 structtiral peculiarities, the toes being exceptionally 

 short and thick, the frontal bone curiously modified, 

 and the eyes enormously large, like those of a noc- 

 turnal species. I do not think, however, that it 

 migrates by night, as I have never heard its peculiar 

 passage-cry after dark. A flock is usually composed 

 of from a dozen to thirty individuals, and when on 

 the ground they scatter widely, running more rapidly 

 than any other Plover I am acquainted with. When 

 they travel the flight is swift and high, the birds 

 much scattered. They possess no mellow or ringing 

 notes like other members of the Plover family ; on 

 the ground they are silent, but when taking wing 

 invariably utter a long, tremulous, reedy note, with a 

 falling inflection, and usually repeated three or four 

 times. The sound may be imitated by striking on the 

 slackened stings of a guitar. This cry is frequently 

 uttered while the birds are migrating. 



On the Rio Negro in Patagonia I observed this 

 Plover only in the winter season; but Durnford 

 found it nesting in the valley of the Sengel in Chupat 

 in the month of December. 



