162 



CHAKADBIUS. 



iEgialites niveifrons {Lesson), Cabanis, Dec/ten's Reisen in Ost-Afrika, iii. pt. i. p. 46 (1869). 

 iEgialitis albidipectus, Ridyway \ Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. v. p. 526 (1883). 



Literature. 



-Unfigured. 



Plates. 



Habits. — Sharpe, Birds of South Africa, p. 659. 



Eggs. — Layard, Birds of South Africa, p. 298. 



Specific 

 characters. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



The White-breasted Plover is an Ethiopian form of the Kentish Plover. Besides the 

 characters which it shares with all the JEgialophili minores, it agrees with the Kentish 

 Plover and its nearest allies in having the white or rusty collar not cut off from the white 

 throat by the black stripe from the eyes, as is the case with C. pecuarius and C. sanctce- 

 helence when adult. Both these species are, however, excluded, together with C. ruficapillus, 

 C. cantianus, and C. occidentalis, by the character pale legs and feet. From C. collaris and 

 from adult males in breeding-plumage of C. nivosus, C. dealbatus, and C.peroni, it may be 

 distinguished by the absence of black on the sides of the breast. In winter plumage it is 

 almost impossible to distinguish it from the three last-named species, but its nuchal collar 

 is never so clearly defined as it is in C. peroni, the lores are seldom so white as they are in 

 C. nivosus; the dark patch under the shoulder is paler and smaller than it is either in 

 C. nivosus or in C. dealbatus ; and the tarsus is longer than it is in C. nivosus, but not so 

 long as it is in C. peroni or in C. dealbatus. 



It is probably specifically distinct from all its allies except from C. tenellus, wdiich 

 may have originated in a cross between C. ruficapillus and C. cantianus, before they 

 had become quite so much differentiated as they now appear to be. 



It is subject to the same variation of size as its Palrearctic ally, the length of wing 

 from the carpal joint varying from 4*5 inch in large examples from South Africa to 3 - 7 in 

 small examples from West Africa. 



There seems to be no reliable evidence of the occurrence of the White-breasted Plover 

 in East Africa north of the Line. Heuglin obtained a single very bleached example on the 

 Arabian coast of the Red Sea, which was probably a diseased example of C. cantianus 

 that was unable to moult in spring, and consequently did not migrate. Blanford records 

 it as common at Zulla on the Abyssinian coast in June ; but the only example in the British 

 Museum is one from Massowa, which belongs to the dwarf form of C. cantianus. Jesse 

 brought home no examples of C. marginatus, but found C. pecuarius in small flocks at 

 Zoulla on the Red Sea in June, which was probably the species which Blanford mistook for 

 C. marginatus (Finsch, Trans. Zool. Soc. vii. p. 297). Fischer obtained examples in 



" 



1 This bird is described from an example in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, labelled " Chili 

 S. Abri." There is no history attached to it, and the locality may fairly be assumed to be some obscure town 

 in S. Africa. 



