OF THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 129 



Family CHAEADEIID^. Genus ^gialitis. 



Subfamily Ghabadriinm. 



GREATER RINGED PLOVER. 



^GIALITIS MAJOE— (TmiSram). 



Charadrius hiaticula, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 253 (1766 partim.) ; Macgill. Brit. B. iv. 

 p. 116 {1850 pa/rtim). 



Charadrius major, Tristram, _/i(i0 Gray, Hand-I. B. iii. p. 15 (1871); Seebohm, Hist. 

 Brit. B. iii. p. 20 (1885). 



i^gialitis hiaticula (Linn.), Dresser, B. Eur. p. 467, pi. 525 (1876 partim) ; Yarrell, 

 Brit. B. ed. 4, iii. p. 257 {1883 partim) ; Lilford, Col. Pig. Brit. B. pt. xx. {1891partim). 



y^gialitis hiaticula major (Tristram), Dixon, Nests and Eggs Brit. B. p. 260 (1894) ; 

 Seebohm, Col. Pig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 121, pi. 40 (1896). 



..^gialitis hiaticola (Linn.), Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 158 (1896 partim) ; 

 Sbarpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 256 (1896 ^arim). 



Geographical distribution. — British : The Greater Einged Plover is 

 widely distributed and resident throughout the British Islands, in many inland 

 districts as well as 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 Einged 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. Further research may probably show it to be an inhabitant of all 

 the coasts of the North Sea. 



Allied forms. — Mgialitis hiaticula, the small race, which will be treated 



of in the following chapter. The Greater Einged 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 (5'5 to 5'0 inches instead of 5'2 to 4'8 inches). As may be 



remarked from these figures, the two races completely intergrade. Mgialeus 



semipalmatus, 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. As this bird is found at least as far south as Patagonia, it may 



prove another example of a species with an equatorial winter base migrating north 



and south to breed in the temperate and polar regions of the Northern and 



Southern hemispheres, Although the bird is generically distinct from both races 



of the Einged Plover because of the web between the outer and middle toes 



extending to the second joint, its great resemblance in every other external 

 y 



