Determina- 

 tion of the 

 type. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



Climatic 

 distribution. 



92 CHAKADKIUS. 



OxyechuSj -\ rC vociferus. 



Ochthodromus, >Reichenbach, fide Bonap. Compt. Rend, xliii. p. 418 (1856) < C. vilsoni. 



Zonibyx, J vC. modestus. 



Morinellus, -\ , C. morinellus. 



Pluviorhynchus, f „ „ . „ , ,... ,,.„»„, I C. obscurus. 



J ' > Bonap. Compt. Rend. xlm. p. 417 (18o6) ^ 



Cirrepidesmus, I 1 C. geoffroyi. 



Leucopolius, J ^C. marginatus. 



iEgialophilus, Gould, Handb. Birds Austr. ii. p. 234 (1865) C. cantianus. 



Podasocys, Coues, Proc. Philad. Ac. Nat. Sc. 1866., p. 96 G. montanus. 



The characters upon which these genera are founded are mostly unimportant differences 

 in the shape of the bill, which are probably of little or no taxonomic value. 



It is quite impossible to guess which species Linneus would have regarded as the type 

 of the genus Charadrius, had the idea of the necessity of providing each genus with a 

 so-called typical species (which may or may not be an aberrant species according to 

 circumstances) ever occurred to the great Swedish naturalist. In the tenth edition of his 

 great work the first species on the list is C. cristatus, which unquestionably refers to 

 Vanettus spinosus, a fact which he discovered before the twelfth edition, where the first 

 species on the list is C. Maticula. The Golden Plover (C. pluvialis) has by common 

 consent been accepted as the type of the restricted genus Charadrius, probably on the 

 ground that Brisson (who evidently recognized the importance of a type, though he 

 omitted to point it out in his usual manner in this genus) regarded it as so emphatically 

 the typical Plover that he changed the name of the genus from Charadrius to Pluvialis. 



The range of the genus Charadrius is almost cosmopolitan, but two thirds of the 

 species breed in the temperate zones of both hemispheres. It is rather remarkable that the 

 genus is almost unrepresented in the Pacific Islands, the only species known to visit them 

 being C.fulvus. 



During the breeding-season the species are distributed as follows : — 



Arctic America 2 



Arctic Eurasia 4 



Arctic species ■ — 6 



Temperate North America 6 



Temperate South America 4 



Southern Australia and New Zealand . . 9 



South Africa 1 



Temperate Eurasia 9 



Temperate species — 29 



Tropical America 1 



Tropical Asia 3 



Tropical Africa 6 



Tropical species — 10 



Species and subspecies of Charadrius . . — 45 



