188 CHARADRIID.E. 



The call-note resembles the sound deea, chit, or (lit, 

 several times repeated. 



When obtained young, this species will live for a couple 

 of years in confinement, and becomes very tame and amusing, 

 and feeds on bread and milk, intermixed now and then with 

 worms, mealworms, and other insects. 



In a wild state the food of the Little Ring Dotterel 

 consists in coleopterous insects, flies, worms, and the larvee 

 of insects, also water-insects, which it obtains by wading 

 in the shallows. 



The spot chosen for the nest of this species is generally 

 where the smallest particles of gravel cover the surface of 

 the ground, but never on the fine sand, as some authors 

 have stated; the nest itself is a perfect rounded cavity in 

 the ground, or layer of small stones, and in it four eggs 

 are deposited, of the size and colour represented in our 

 plate. The parent birds incubate the eggs principally during 

 the night, when the weather is fine, also during the day 

 when it rains, or when the sun is overshadowed by clouds ; 

 and in sixteen or seventeen days the young run about, 

 which have the instinct of hiding themselves so cleverly 

 on the appearance of danger, behind a stone or weed, that 

 it is very difficult to find them without the aid of a dog. 



The size of the Little Ring Dotterel is not quite seven 

 inches in length; the wing five inches and a half; tarsus 

 eleven lines and a half; the naked part of the tibia four 

 lines ; the beak six lines. 



The plumage of this bird in adult summer-livery is very 

 nearly the same as that of the foregoing species, but the 

 shape of the bird being much more slender, and the legs 

 and feet so widely different, it is strange how the two 

 species can be mistaken when compared. The feathers 

 on the back of the head, and from the back extending over 



