500 RING PLOVER. 
They are remarkably plump birds, weighing upwards of three quarters 
of a pound; their flesh is superior, in point of delicacy, tenderness, 
and flavor, to any other of the tribe with which I am acquainted. 
This species is twelve inches long, and twenty-one in extent; the 
‘ bill is an inch and a half long, slightly bent downwards, and wrinkled 
at the base, the upper mandible, black on its ridge, the lower, as well 
as the edge of the upper, of a fine yellow; front, stripe over the eye, 
neck and breast, pale ferruginous, marked with small streaks of black, 
which, on the lower part of the breast, assume the form of arrow- 
heads; crown, black, the plumage slightly skirted with whitish; chin, 
orbit of the eye, whole belly and vent, pure white; hind head and 
neck above, ferruginous, minutely streaked with black; back and 
scapulars, black, the former slightly skirted with ferruginous, the latter 
with white; tertials, black, bordered with white; primaries, plain 
black; shaft of the exterior quill, snowy, its inner vane elegantly 
pectinated with white; secondarics, pale brown, spotted on their outer 
vanes with black, and tipped with white; greater coverts, dusky, 
edged with pale ferruginous, and spotted with black; lesser coverts, 
pale ferruginous, each feather broadly bordered with white, with- 
in which is a concentric semicircle of black; rump and _tail-coy- 
erts, deep brown black, slightly bordered with white; tail, tapering 
of a pale brown orange color, beautifully spotted with black, the 
middle feathers centred with dusky; legs, yellow, tinged with green, 
the outer toe joined to the middle by a membrane; lining of the wings, 
elegantly barred with black and white; iris of the eye, dark or blue 
black, eye, very large. The male and female are nearly alike. 
a 
Le 
t 
Pd mw ated RING PLOVER. —TRINGA- HIATICULA. — Fic. 235. 
Arct. Zool. ii. p. 485, No. 401. — Le petit pluvier a collier, Buff. viii. 90. — Bewick, 
i. 326. — Peale’s Museum, No. 4150. 
an _ 
CHARADRIUS SEMIPALMATUS. — Bonaparte.*. 
Charadrius semipalmatus, Bonap. Synop. p. 296.— American Ring Plover, North. 
Zool. ii. p. 367. — Charadrius semipalmatus 7? Wagl. Syst. Av. No. 23. 
In a preceding part of this work, (Fig. 160,) a bird by this name has — 
been figured and described, under the supposition that it was the Ring 
* The smaller Charadriade of America have been much confused, owing to 
their close alliance to each other, and to those of Europe, with some of which they 
were thought to be identical. The Prince of Musignano has clearly pointed out 
the differences which exist between this and the species figured in No. 160, 
and which bears a more close resemblance to the little African C. pecuarius than 
either the present species or the hiaticula of Europe, (sce also our note on that 
species ;) and, although he has not been able to point out such distinctive characters 
between the latter species and that now under discussion, I have no doubt what- 
ever of their being eventually found quite distinct; and it will be found, by those 
persons who are inclined to allow so much for the influence of climate in renderin, 
form, color, and plumage distinct, that it is comparatively of no importance, an 
