The Golden Plover. ^^ 



Young in first winter have the back much more thickly spotted with browner 

 golden, and the under parts grey. Length 9-1 1 inches, wing 7 inches. 



Nestling, ('Asbyrgi, Iceland) : under parts greyish-white down ; above delicately 

 mottled with an exquisite mixture of black, grey, and golden; feet dark brown. 

 The above from my own collection ; from Britain, Norway, and Iceland. 



It should be remembered, with regard to the summer plumage, that there are 

 certain anomalies ; it seems that the English breeding birds do not put on the 

 full nuptial dress. I have often remarked this, and in the end of May, 1895, I 

 was driving over one of the Durham fells, where Golden Plovers were breeding 

 abundantly. More than a dozen, evidently breeding, came under my close obser- 

 vation with a glass, not more than forty yards from the carriage, of which they 

 had no fear : not one of them but was flecked on the breast with white, and had 

 a good deal of the same colour on chin and throat. Having written so much, it 

 occurred to me that Abel Chapman was sure to have observed the same thing, 

 and in his " Bird-life on the Borders," (the only book on that region that I have 

 found of much value), I found, on page 18, " the Northumbrian Plovers, at best, 

 are only marbled," and more to the same effect, for which readers are referred to 

 that interesting and reliable book itself. 



The other anomaly is, that some birds acquire the summer dress long before 

 others do, (these anomalies are, probably, part and parcel. of one another). On 

 March 29th, 1879, ^^ I was on my way down to the river (Tyne) to fish, I 

 observed, and watched for some time, a flock of some fifty Golden Plovers, 

 apparently on their way to the fells at the head of the Tyne to breed, and already 

 some thirty miles from the sea. About half were in full (Northximbrian) breeding 

 dress — the rest did not seem to be wearing a single black feather on throat or 

 chest. 



The nest is always on moorland in this country, but further north (as in 

 Iceland) often on low, flat, grassy wastes, quite near the sea. It consists of a 

 depression in the turf, lined with not much (if any) more material than has been 

 growing previously on the site of the nest — if on grassy ground, with scraps of 

 grass — if on open Norwegian fjeld, with reindeer moss ; a few feathers from the 

 bird's breast are usuall}^ found in the nest, rubbed off probably as the bird smooths 

 and shapes the hollow by revolving in it. I have no evidence that the female 

 incubates at all ; and of four examples shot off the eggs and dissected by me, all 

 were males ; but I do not wish to lay down a law from so few instances. The 

 eggs are four, very large for the size of the bird, pyriform, and with the narrow 

 ends pointing inwards in the nest. Tliey vary from a pale stone colour to olive 

 in ground tint, (rarely of a warm reddish-buff), and are boldl}' and handsomely 



Vol. V JNI 



