GOLDEN PL VER. 3 6q 



where they likewise breed ; extend also to Kamtschatka, and 

 as far south as the Sandwich Isles. In this latter place, Mr 

 Pennant remarks, " they are very small." 



Although these birds are occasionally found along our sea- 

 coast from Georgia to Maine, yet they are nowhere numerous; 

 and I have never met with them in the interior. Our moun- 

 tains being generally covered with forest, and no species of 

 heath having as 3 r et been discovered within the boundaries 

 of the United States, these birds are probably induced to 

 seek the more remote arctic regions of the continent to breed 

 and rear their young in, where the country is more open, and 

 unencumbered with woods. 



The golden plover is ten inches and a half long, and 

 twenty-one inches in extent ; bill, short, of a dusky slate 

 colour ; eye, very large, blue black ; nostrils, placed in a deep 

 furrow, and half covered with a prominent membrane ; whole 

 upper parts, black, thickly marked with roundish spots of 

 various tints of golden yellow ; wing-coverts and hind part 

 of the neck, pale brown, the latter streaked with yellowish ; 

 front, broad line over the eye, chin, and sides of the same, 

 yellowish white, streaked with small pointed spots of brown 

 olive ; breast, gray, with olive and white ; sides under the 

 wings, marked thinly with transverse bars of pale olive ; 

 belly and vent, white ; wing-quills, black, the middle of the 

 shafts marked with white ; greater coverts, black tipt with 

 white ; tail, rounded, black, barred with triangular spots of 

 golden yellow ; legs, dark dusky slate ; feet, three-toed, with 

 generally the slight rudiments of a heel, the outer toe con- 

 nected, as far as the first joint, with the middle one. The 

 male and female differ very little in colour. 



vol. 11. 2 A. 



