272 CHARADRIIFORMES 



cocks are certainly somewhat crepuscular, aud the drumming of 

 the Snipe (p. 291) must be mentioned in passing. Nearly all Limi- 

 coline birds are migrants, and may frequently be heard overhead 

 at night, when on passage. The flesh is generally excellent. 



Fam. I. Charadriidae. — Sub-fam. 1. Gharadriinae. — The 

 Dotterel {Eudromias morinellus), breeds on the fells and tundras of 

 Northern Europe and Asia, as well as on the mountains of Scotland, 

 Transylvania, Styria, and Bohemia — if not still in the English Lake 

 District ; in winter it migrates to Palestine and North Africa. The 

 colour is ashy-brown, with black crown and nape, towards the latter 

 of which the white superciliary streaks run down ; the throat is 

 whitish, the fore-neck brown, divided by a white gorget from the 

 orange-chestnut lower breast ; the abdomen is black, the lateral 

 rectrices are tipped with white. The young are more rufous above, 

 and grey and white below. Three olive eggs with brown blotches 

 are laid in a depression of the mossy ground, the parents being 

 tamer than most Plovers at the nest. U. veredus inhabits Mongolia, 

 wintering in the Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and Australia ; R 

 australis is confined to the last country ; JS. {Zonihyx) modestus, the 

 only four-toed species of the genus, ranges from Tarapaca and Buenos 

 Aires to Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. Gharadrius 

 pluvialis, the Golden Plover, breeds on the higher British moorlands, 

 and reaches from Northern Europe to the Lena in Asia, overlapping 

 about the Yenisei G. fiilvus, with grey instead of white axillaries, 

 which extends to Bering Sea and — as the stouter, shorter-toed 

 race G. dominicus — to Greenland. Both the latter have occurred 

 in England. The plumage is black, densely spotted with yellow 

 above, the forehead and superciliary streaks are white, as are the 

 sides of the body. In winter the under parts are nearly white. 

 At that season the various species migrate southwards as far as 

 Cape Colony, India, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and Chili. 

 The loud clear whistle of the Golden Plover is a characteristic 

 sound in summer on our sub-alpine hills, where the bird deposits 

 four rich olive-brown eggs in a hollow in the herbage ; it is very 

 wary at the nest. The Grey Plover, Squcdarola helvetica, with a 

 distinct hind toe and black axillaries, is browner than the fore- 

 going three-toed species in summer, and greyer in winter ; it 

 visits us from autumn to spring, but breeds in the far north of 

 Eastern Europe, Asia, and America, reaching Cape Colony, Ceylon, 

 and Tasmania on migration. Erythrogonys cinchis of Australia, and 



