506 GOLDEN PLOVER. 
with in the months of September and October; soon after which they 
disappear. The young birds of the Great Black-bellied Plover are 
sometimes mistaken for this species. Hence the reason why Mr. Pen- 
nant remarks his having seen a variety of the Golden Plover, with 
black breasts, which he supposed to be the young.* 
The Golden Plover is common in the northern parts of Europe. It 
breeds on high and heathy mountains. The female lays four eggs, 
of a pale olive color, variegated with blackish spots. They usually fly 
in small flocks, and have a shrill, whistling note. They are very fre- 
quent in Siberia, where they likewise breed; extend also to Kamts- 
chatka, and as far south as the Sandwich Isles. In this latter place, 
Mr. Pennant remarks, “ they are very small.” 
Although these birds are occasionally found along our sea-coast, 
from Georgia to Maine, yet they are no where numerous; and I have 
never met with them in the interior. Our mountains being generally 
covered with forest, and no species of heath having, as yet, been dis- 
covered within the boundaries of the United ‘States, these birds are 
probably induced to seek the more remote arctic regions of the con- 
tinent, to breed and rear their young in, where the country is more 
open, and unencumbered with woods. 
The Golden Plover is ten inches and a half long, and twenty-one 
inches in extent; bill, short, of a dusky slate color; eye, very large, 
blue black ; nostrils, placed in a deep furrow, and half covered with a 
prominent membrane; whole upper parts, black, thickly marked with 
roundish spots of various tints of golden yellow; wing-coverts, and 
hind part of the neck, pale brown, the latter streaked with yellowish ; 
front, broad line over the eye, chin, and sides, of the same, yellowish 
white, streaked with small, pointed spots of brown olive; breast, gray, 
with olive and white; sides, under the wings, marked thinly with 
transverse bars of pale olive; belly and vent, white; wing-quills, 
black, the middle of the shafts marked with white ; greater coverts, 
black, tipped with white ; tail, rounded, black, barred with triangular 
spots of golden yellow; legs, dark dusky slate; feet, three-toed, with 
generally the slight rudiments of a heel, the outer toe connected, as 
far as the first joint, wth the middle one. The male and female differ 
very little in color. 
of North America; I have uever, however, seen or received extra European speci- 
mens of the Golden Plover. I possess C. Virginianus from India, Arctic America, 
and New Holland, which seems, in all those countries, very and exclusively abun- 
dant, and has always been confounded with its ally. 
In plate 85 of Oractholagécal Iliustrations, this bird has, most unaccountably, 
been described under the title of C. xanthochielus, Wagler. It is undaubtedly this 
species, and figured from New Holland specimens. -— Ep. 
* Arctic Zoology, p. 484. 
