OP THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 127 



of the Yangtse and Nepal. Differs from the Little Einged Plover in being much 

 larger (length of wing 5^ inches), and in having a more graduated tail (outer tail 

 feather -5 inch instead of less than "25 inch shorter than the middle ones). 



naDlts. — The Little Einged Plover is not nearly as much a marine species 

 as the Einged Plover, and its haunts are chiefly the banks of rivers and inland 

 lakes and pools. It often wanders up rivers great distances inland, and shows 

 a special preference for those in which numerous sandbanks occur and where the 

 shores are pebble-strewn. Water, however, does not always seem essential to 

 this species : it is sometimes met with on dry fallows and desert plains some 

 distance from that element. It is a thorough ground bird, and spends most of its 

 time running about the gravel and the sand in quest of food. From time to time 

 it indulges in short flights, just above the ground or water, which are moderately 

 quick, and performed by rapid and regular beats of the long and somewhat arched 

 vdngs. It is said to be more shy than its larger congener, but certainly this is 

 not my experience. I met with these charming little birds in the rapidly drying- 

 up Oued, at Biskra, on the confines of the Great Desert. It was in May, and all 

 were in pairs, apparently for the breeding season. They frequented the pebble- 

 strewn dry bed of the river as well as the strips of sand in mid-stream, and I 

 repeatedly saw them soaring above scrub-clothed ground at some little distance 

 from the actual bed of the stream. The note of the Little Einged Plover is a 

 loud, clear, and somewhat plaintive pee, rendered by Naumann as ded, rapidly 

 repeated when the bird is alarmed. In spring, during the pairing season, the 

 male also utters a by no means unmusical triU as it soars up like a Lark, and 

 gradually descends again. The males I noticed at Biskra kept the air for some 

 little time, careering about after they reached the zenith of their flight just as the 

 Sky Lark so frequently does. The food of this species is composed largely of 

 insects, especially beetles, grubs, and worms. Even during winter this bird is 

 never as gregarious as the Einged Plover, and as often as not is met with alone, 

 although others are usually in the immediate neighbourhood. 



Nidification. — The Little Einged Plover arrives at its European breeding 

 grounds in April, but the eggs are seldom laid before the middle or end of May, 

 and sometimes not until the beginning of June. The eggs are laid ih a little 

 hollow in the sand or shingle, which the parent bird scratches out for their 

 reception, and no lining ever appears to be inserted. Mr. Abel Chapman states 

 that he frequently found the eggs deposited in a slight hollow, scraped in dry 

 cattle-droppings. They are four in number, very pyriform, buff in ground-colour, 

 speckled and streaked with various shades of brown and ink-grey, most numerous 

 on the larger end of the egg. They measure on an average I'lS inch in length 

 by '85 inch in breadth. As the watchful, wary parent bird is careful to leave 

 them when danger approaches the eggs are difficult to find, bearing, as they do, 



