RUDDY PLOVER. 541 
stomach was filled with small snails, periwinkle shell fish, some kind 
of mossy, vegetable food, and a number of aquatic insects. The in- 
testines were infested with tape-worms, and a number of smaller, bot- 
like worms, some of which wallowed in the cavity of the abdomen. 
In Mr. Peale’s collection, there is one of this same species, said to 
have been brought from New Holland, differing little in the markings 
of its plumage from our own. The red brown on the neck does not 
descend so far, scarcely occupying any of the breast; it is also some- 
what less. 
In every stuffed and dried specimen of these birds which I have 
examined, the true form and flexure of the bill is altogether deranged, 
being naturally of a very tender and delicate substance. 
== 
RUDDY PLOVER. — CHARADRIUS RUBIDUS. — Fic. 204. 
Arct. Zool. No. 404,— Lath. Syn. iii. p. 195, No. 2. — Turt. Syst. p. 415. 
CALIDRIS ARENARIA. — ILuicer. 
Tringa arenaria, Bonap. Synop. p. 320. 
Tunis bird is frequently found in company with the Sanderling, 
which, except in. color, it very much resembles. It is generally seen 
on the sea-coast of New Jersey in May and October, on its way to and 
from its breeding-place in the north. It runs with great activity along 
the edge of the flowing or retreating waves on the sands, picking up 
the small bivalve shell fish, which supplies so many multitudes of the 
Plover and Sandpiper tribes. 
I should not be surprised if the present species turn out hereafter to 
be the Sanderling itself, in a different dress. Of many scores which I 
examined, scarce two were alike; in some the plumage of the back 
was almost plain; in others the black plumage was just shooting out. 
This was in the month of October. Naturalists, however, have con- 
sidered it as a separate species; but have given us no further par- 
ticulars than that, “in Hudson’s Bay, it is known by the name of 
Mistchaychekiskaweshish,” *—a piece of information certainly very 
instructive. 
The Ruddy Plover is eight inches long, and fifteen in extent; the 
bill 1s black, an inch long, and straight ; sides of the neck and whole 
upper parts, speckled largely with white, black, and ferruginous ; the 
feathers being centred with black, tipped with white, and edged with 
ferruginous, giving the bird a very motley appearance , belly and vent, 
pure white ; wing-quills, black, crossed with a band of white; lesser 
coverts, whitish, centred with pale olive, the first two or three rows 
black ; two middle tail-feathers, black ; the rest, pale cinereous, edged 
with white; legs and feet, black ; toes, bordered with a very narrow 
membrane. On dissection, both males and females varied in their 
colors and markings. 
* LATHAM. 
46 
