The Lesser Ringed-Plover. ^i 



forehead from eye to eye; below tlie white collar a black one; crown, back, wings, 

 and tail hair-brown, with indistinct lighter tips on back and shoulders ; flight 

 feathers darker, with a white shaft to the first primary only; white tips to the 

 secondaries, forming a narrow white bar across the wing ; rump paler ; tail feathers 

 darker at their ends, and all but the central pair tipped with white, which increases 

 in area outwards, till the outer pair have only one (less commonly two or three) 

 dusky spots on the inner web ; breast and under parts white ; legs and feet dull 

 pinkish-yellow. Length 6 J to nearly 7 inches, closed wing 4^, the first primary 

 very little longer than the second. 



The female is like the male, except that the black on the head and neck is 

 less in extent and duller in tint. 



Young birds have only brown indications of what will be the black markings 

 on head and neck, and the feathers of the upper parts are broadly tipped with 

 buflF. 



Young, in down, are a smaller, slenderer copy of the corresponding stage in 

 the Common Ringed-Plover, but with much more sandy in the down of the upper 

 parts, and lighter, yellower, legs and feet. 



The above descriptions are from skins in my own collection, mostly from 

 China, but there is no perceptible difference between eastern and western specimens. 



The Lesser Ringed-Plover does not breed on sea beaches, like its larger 

 relative, but on similar ground inland, choosing the shingly banks of rivers, and 

 the gravelly margins of inland lakes ; more rarely it breeds on gravelly wastes 

 away from water, but not on sand without an admixture of gravel. Its nest is a 

 mere shallow depression in the shingle, in which are laid four eggs, of a clay 

 colour, minutely spotted and finely streaked with purplish-grey under-markings, 

 and sooty black on the surface — very different to the bold markings of ^g. 

 hiaticulas eggs. Size, less than \\ in length, and an inch in breadth. The eggs 

 are very difiicult to find. 



I have very little personal field-knowledge of this bird, but it is a fresh-water 

 species, only found on sea shores during migration. As the larger Ringed- Plover 

 returns from the inland districts to its favourite sea shores as soon as circumstances 

 permit, so this bird leaves the sea shores (which we may compare to the lines of 

 railway in our own journeys) for fresh-water districts as soon as may be. 



Its ordinary call-note is similar to that of ^g. hiaticula, but is pitched in a 

 higher key, easily recognizable. Its breeding note, however, is a much more 

 ambitious one, ending in a trill somewhat after the manner of Temminck's Stint. 

 Its food consists of small aquatic larvae and insects, with small mollusca. 



