Species II. C. HIATICULA* 



RING PLOVER. 



[Plate LIX. Fig. 3.] 



Aret. Zool. p. 485, No. 401. — La petit Pluvier & collier, Burr. viiT., 90. — Bewick, 



I., 326.t 



In a preceding part of this work J a bird by this name has been 

 figured and described, under the supposition that it was the Ring 

 Plover, then in its summer dress ; but which, notwithstanding its great 

 resemblance to the present, I now suspect to be a different species. 

 Fearful of perpetuating error, and anxious to retract, where this may 

 inadvertently have been the case, I shall submit to the consideration 

 of the reader the reasons on which my present suspicions are founded. 



The present species, or true Ring Plover, and also the former, or light 

 colored bird, both arrive on the seacoast of New Jersey late in April. 

 The present kind continues to be seen in flocks until late in May, when 

 they disappear on their way farther north ; the light colored bird remains 

 during the summer, forms its nest in the sand, and generally produces 

 two broods in the season. Early in September the present species 

 returns in flocks as before ; soon after this, the light colored kind go 

 off to the south, but the other remain a full month later. European 

 writers inform us, that the Ring Plover has a sharp twittering note, and 

 this account agrees exactly with that of the present ; the light colored 

 species, on the contrary, has a peculiarly soft and musical note, similar 

 to the tone of a German flute, which it utters while running along the 

 sand, with expanded tail, and hanging wings, endeavoring to decoy you 

 from its nest. The present species is never seen to breed here ; and 

 though I have opened great numbers of them as late as the twentieth 

 of May, the eggs, which the females contained, were never larger than 

 small bird-shot ; while, at the same time, the light colored kind had 

 everywhere begun to lay in the little cavities which they had dug on the 



* Tringa Maticula, in the original edition, which with Prince Musignano, we con- 

 sider as a typographical error. 



t Charadrius semipalmatus, Bonaparte, Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. N. Y. Vol. ii., p. 

 296. 



% See preceding species. 



(357) 



