Family CHARADRIID^. Genus ^gialitis. 



Subfamily Charadriin^. 



GREATER RINGED PLOVER. 



tEGIALITIS HIATICULA M.K]0^— {Tristram fide Gray). 



Geographical Distribution. — British . Widely distributed 

 and resident throughout the British Islands in many inland 

 districts as well on the sandy portions of the coast. It extends 

 to the Outer Hebrides, but not to St. Kilda, as no part of the 

 coast there is suited to its needs, the Orkneys, Shetlands, and the 

 Channel Islands. Foreign . The extra-British range of this 

 form of the Ringed Plover appears to be very restricted, so far as 

 can at present be determined the bird being confined to the 

 adjoining coasts of France and Holland. Ultimate research may 

 probably show it to be an inhabitant of all the coasts of the 

 North Sea. 



Allied Forms. — .^Egialitis Maticula, the small race which will 

 be treated of in the following chapter. The Greater Ringed 

 Plover is, in its typical form, a much more robust bird, and has 

 the upper parts paler in colour. The wings on an average are 

 longer (5'S to S'o inches instead of 5 '2 to 4"8 inches). As may 

 be remarked from these figures, the two races completely inter- 

 grade. ^E. semipalmata, an inhabitant in summer of Arctic and 

 subarctic America, from Greenland to Alaska, and the north- 

 eastern coasts of Asia, and in winter of tropical America, south- 

 wards to Patagonia. Differs from both races of the Ringed 

 Plover in having the web between the outer and middle toes 

 extending to the second joint. The great resemblance in every 

 other external aspect of this American species to its Old World 

 allies should make examination of the feet imperative of all 

 Ringed Plovers killed on our coasts, as it is more than probable 



