CHAEADEIUS. 



159 



Plates.— Temm. PI. Col. no. 183 ; Harting, Ibis, 1873, pi. viii. 



Habits. — Sharpe, Layard's Birds of S. Africa, p. 661. 



Eggs. — Harting, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1874, pi. Ix. fig. 4 (measure T22x - 88 inch). 



Literature. 



Kittlitz's Plover and its close ally in St. Helena differ, when adult, from the other 

 Plovers in having the dark line from the lores passing underneath the eye and meeting on 

 the nape, thus isolating the pale collar from the pale throat. Young in first plumage may 

 generally be recognized by their long tarsi, which measure \\ inches ; but a safer diagnosis 

 of this species and its close ally in St. Helena is shaft of the third primary dark from end 

 to end. It is rather smaller than its island representative, the bill is less than f- inch from 

 the frontal feathers, and it has a less rounded wing ; the secondaries are much shorter, not 

 reaching beyond the primary-coverts. The length of wing from carpal joint varies from 

 4-4 to 3-9 inch. 



It is described as an inland species, occasionally visiting the sea-shore, and appears to 

 be pretty generally distributed over the Ethiopian Region. 



I have examples from the Cape Verd Islands, Pantee (Ussher), Angola (Monteiro), 

 Damara-Land (Andersson), Cape Colony (Layard), the Transvaal (Ayres), and Egypt 

 (Shelley). Hartlaub records it from Madagascar (Vog. Madag. p. 291) ; Heuglin says 

 that it is not uncommon on the banks of the Blue and White Niles (Orn. N.O.-Afr. ii. 

 p. 1035) ; and Jesse found it on the shores of the Red Sea (Finsch, Trans. Zool. Soc. 

 vii. p. 297). 



In young in first plumage the outer web of the sixth primary (as well as of the 

 seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth) is white towards the base, there is no black on the head 

 or neck, very little buff on the breast, but the nape is so much suffused with buff that the 

 pale collar is scarcely traceable. It is not known that the winter plumage differs from that 

 of summer ; but the female has less black above the forehead than the male. 



The wings of this species are less rounded than those of C. sanctce-helence, but more 

 so than those of C. cantiamis. It is not, strictly speaking, a migratory bird like the latter 

 species, but during the dry season it has to wander far and wide in search of food. It is 

 difficult to imagine how more rounded wings could be advantageous to the island species, 

 or in what way they could have been altered by Natural Selection, but it is open to the 

 advocates of that theory to argue that they have not altered. It is possible to assume that 

 since the isolation of the three species the wings of C. sanctce-lielena (which does not 

 migrate at all) have altered very little, but that those of C. pecuarius (which migrates 

 locally to a considerable extent) have become rather less rounded, whilst those of C cantianics 

 (which has to cross the sea in its migrations) have altered most. But whether these 

 differences have been produced by degradation by disuse on the part of the island species, 

 or by development on that of the continental forms, the correlation between long narrow 

 wings and migratory habits, and that between shorter broader wings and sedentary habits 

 is very interestiug. 



Specific 

 characters. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



Young 

 plumage. 



