540 



spotted and striped with velvety black ; a broad black band passes from the eye to the nape ; and below 

 this on the hind neck there is a white crescentic mark ; tail blackish ; bill blackish grey with a horn- 

 blue point; feet greenish plumbeous. 



This, the only representative of the genus Hoplopterus which has been obtained within the 

 limits of the Western Pakearctic Region, is of somewhat rare occurrence in Europe proper, and 

 is only found in the countries skirting the Mediterranean, in West Africa, and eastward as far 

 as Persia. 



It has not been recorded from Central or Western Europe ; and though Temminck asserted 

 that it has been met with in Sicily, it appears doubtful if such is really the case, as neither 

 Salvadori nor Doderlein are aware of any instance of its occurrence. But though improbable, yet 

 it is by no means impossible for it to have straggled thus far ; for Mr. C. A. Wright records 

 (Ibis, 1869, p. 246) its occurrence in Malta as follows: — "On the morning of the 12th of 

 October, 1865, I found my birdstuffer waiting for me with news that he had just received a 

 wounded bird of a kind he had not seen before, which he wished me to identify. He said he 

 thought it might turn out to be a young Lapwing. We soon reached his dwelling ; and I was 

 delighted to find at a glance that he was mistaken, and that the bird was certainly no other than 

 Hoplopterus spinosus. I told him to look at the carpal joints; and on doing so he was much 

 surprised to find the strong sharp spur with which this species is there armed. He informed me 

 that the bird was given to him by a sportsman who, while Quail-shooting the day before, had 

 flushed it and another together from a cotton-field. Its companion escaped. Of course, I lost 

 no time in securing the prize for my local collection ; and with Chettusia leucura and Charadrius 

 longipes it forms an interesting trio. On dissection it proved to be a female, with ovary (as might 

 be expected at that season) very small." I do not find that it has been obtained elsewhere in 

 Europe proper, except in Greece, Turkey, and South Russia. Dr. Kriiper states that in Greece 

 and in Asia Minor it is occasionally met with, and adds that there are specimens in the Museum 

 at Athens which were, killed in Attica on the 10th March 1860, and 6th May 1862. Mr. Danford 

 informs me that he saw many in December at Tatar- Bazar djik on the Maritza ; and Professor 

 von Nordmann says that he obtained a Spur-winged Plover near Odessa in May 1837, and that 

 he subsequently ascertained that this species visited South Russia and the neighbourhood of the 

 Black Sea annually. The specimen in question was one of eight or ten of this species which 

 were in company with a large flock of Vanellus gregarius. 



As above stated, the Spur-winged Plover is found, though rarely, in Asia Minor ; and it also 

 occurs in Palestine, where, Canon Tristram writes (Ibis, 1868, p. 323), "it returns as most of its 

 congeners are leaving, and spares no pains, by voice and action, to make its arrival known. We 

 found it everywhere in pairs, by streams or in marshy lands, where it was evidently breeding, 

 though we never lighted on a nest." In North-east Africa the present species is very common ; 

 but it does not range far south in Africa. Von Heuglin writes (Orn. N.O.-Afr. p. 1005): — "In 

 Egypt there is scarcely a lagoon, a canal, a pond, or a tract of ground overflowed with water, or 

 an island in the river, where this species does not occur ; and it also visits the fallow-fields and 

 pastures on the very outskirts of cultivated land. It is almost as numerous in Nubia, on the 

 Atbara, on the lower White and Blue Nile, and in the swamps of East Kordofan. In Abyssinia 

 and along the coasts of the Red Sea we only met with it along the rainwater streams and rivers 



