PIPING PLOVER. 469 
they decrease rapidly, thus presenting a most useful mark for 
discriminating between this and the kindred genus Vanellus, 
which has obtuse wings, the third primary being the longest, 
and the others decreasing gradually. ‘The tail is more or less 
rounded, always composed of twelve feathers, rounded or 
lanceolate. The plumage of the under parts is soft, the feathers 
being numerous, wide, rather* dense in the centre, with the 
barbs rather loose, and well furnished with down at base: the 
plumage of the upper parts is rather dense, and the feathers 
more or less rounded at the tips: the scapularies are long, at 
the tips attenuated and very flexible. In most of the species 
the males and females are alike, the young somewhat different 
from them. They moult generally twice in the year, when the 
colours of their plumage undergo some changes. 
The plovers are all more or less gregarious in dispositions : 
their haunts are either meadows, as the mottled plovers, or 
the sea-shores, like the ring-plovers: they have a very remark- 
able habit of stirring the soil with their feet, to put in motion 
worms and aquatic insects, their exclusive food. They are 
more nocturnal than diurnal. They lay in the sand, about 
four large eggs. The young very soon after they are hatched 
follow the mother, and pick up the food which she with great 
care points out to them. 
The piping plover is seven inches long, and fourteen in 
extent: the bill is bright yellow, slightly tinged with orange 
for half its length, thence black: the eyelids are bright yellow, 
and the irides dark brown. The plumage above generally, 
with the mere interruption of the ring on the neck, is of an 
extremely pale brownish or dusky, inclining strongly to 
whitish ash: the front, part of the head between the bill and 
eyes, and the whole inferior surface from the chin to the tip 
of the lower tail-coverts, and including the under wing-coverts 
and long axillary feathers, is pure white: the head and breast 
are ornamented, the former with a black crescent, that runs 
transversely between the eyes, and bounds the white forehead 
on one side, and the ash-coloured parts of the head on the 
