142 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



that there were still many living parasites remaining on the feathers. The 

 sternum Mr. Lowne sent to Professor Newton. The total length of the bird in 

 the flesh was 8 inches and its weight 2^oz. Mr. Knights was good enough to 

 give me the first offer of the bird, and through the liberality of some friends of 

 the Norwich Museum I was enabled to purchase this latest addition to the many 

 local rarities for that institution." (Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1890, p. 461.) Foreign : 

 South central Palaearctic region ; Ethiopian region in winter. The range of this 

 Plover is remarkably restricted, the bird in the breeding season being apparently 

 confined to the basins of the Caspian and Aral Seas. It passes Arabia and the 

 Upper Nile Valley on migration, and winters in Africa in the Intertropical realm. 

 There can be little doubt that this is another species which migrates north and 

 south from an equatorial base. That it breeds in South Africa seems to be sug- 

 gested by the fact that examples in full breeding dress — dated from November to 

 February — have been obtained there, and are now in the National Collection. It 

 is also a rare visitor to Western India, and is also a straggler to Heligoland and 

 Italy ; whilst an immature bird was taken six hundred miles from land in the 

 Indian Ocean. 



Allied forms. — None with which it is likely to be confused. 



Habits. — But little is known of the habits of this Plover ; and from the 

 few fragments recorded in the Ibis and elsewhere I do not find anything of special 

 interest. 



Nidification. — -A reputed egg of this species taken on the Kirghiz Steppes 

 is described by Mr. Dresser (B. of Europe) as oval and tapering, warm buff, with 

 a faint tinge of green in ground-colour, and the spots nearly black. This descrip- 

 tion appears to be a doubtful one. Von Middendorff figures an egg of this bird 

 in his Beise in Nord. und Ost. Sibiriens, ii., pi. xix., fig. 4. It measures 1'25 inch 

 in length by 1'07 inch in breadth. 



Diagnostic characters.— Ochthodromus, with no black markings on 

 the head and neck, with the lores white, and the legs and feet pale brown. 

 Length, 7'5 inches. 



