520 A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Crustacea (especially Amphipoda, Gammaridse, etc.), worms, mol- 

 lusca (chiefly small marine univalves), and vegetable matter. 

 Distribution. — British Isles. — Resident (to what extent breeding- 

 birds are migrants is uncertain), winter -visitor and passage -migrant 

 (mid-Aug. to mid -Nov. and mid-March to mid -May), also weather- 

 movements both of arrival and departure in winter months. Gener- 

 ally distributed flat coasts, and also a few breed inland as in the 

 Cheviots, west Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, Surrey, and Worcester, 

 on banks of rivers and lakes, warrens, sewage-farms, etc. 

 Distribution. — Abroad. — Faeroes, Iceland, Lapland, Scandinavia 

 to Mediterranean on sea-shores, lakes and sometimes rivers, north 

 Russia, Bear Island and Spitsbergen, also Greenland and Cumber- 

 land Sound in eastern arctic America. Winters on Mediterranean 

 and in Africa, as far south as Cape Colony, casual in Atlantic 

 islands, north-west India, Australia, Chile and Barbados. Replaced 

 by an allied race in Siberia and its islands. 



CHARADRIUS SEMIPALMATUS 



374. Charadrius semipalmatus Bp. — THE SEMI -PALM ATED 

 RINGED PLOVER. 



Charadrius semipalmatus Bonaparte, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila- 

 delphia, V., p. 98 (1825— North America). 

 Charadrius semipalmatus, Thomas Parkin, Brit. B., X, p. 254. 



Description. — Adult male. Winter. — Much like C. h. hiaticula 

 but differing as follows : narrow line at base of upper mandible 

 from eye to eye drab, feathers faintly edged white ; crown drab, 

 fore -part of crown without black band but sometimes intermixed 

 with black-brown feathers ; black nuchal collar ill-defined, some- 

 times absent, sometimes intermixed with drab -brown feathers ; 

 above eye a narrow and ill-defined white eye-stripe continuous with 

 white patch behind eye, some feathers tipped drab or black-brown ; 

 patch below eye drab intermixed with black-brown feathers ; ear- 

 coverts drab ; pectoral band much narrower especially towards 

 centre than in C. h. hiaticula and drab, some feathers tipped white 

 and more or less marked same and intermixed with black-brown 

 feathers ; secondaries as in C. h. hiaticula but white bases narrower 

 and usually confined to inner webs (in most C. h. hiaticula, second- 

 aries have basal halves white), inner secondaries drab or dusky 

 brown, outer webs more or less marked white, inner webs more or 

 less white towards base, occasionally one inner secondary white, 

 suffused palest drab, but usually inner secondaries with much less 

 white than in C. h. hiaticula. This plumage is acquired by complete 

 moult July to Dec. /Summer. — The body -feat hers but not all 

 scapulars, nor all (sometimes not any) feathers of back and rump, 

 apparently occasionally tail-feathers, some innermost secondaries 

 and coverts, some median and lesser coverts are moulted Jan. to 

 May but not rest of wings. Some winter body-feathers sometimes 

 retained. Except for secondaries resembles C. h. hiaticula. 



