296 



BIRDS. 



more than three or four together ; and considers it as a late autumn 

 migrant. 



[Ch. dominicus, Muller. Lesser Golden Plover, or 

 Ch. virginicus, Licht. American Grey Plover. 



Mr, Malloch told Mr. W. Evans that he had shot a specimen of this rare 

 Siberian (or American ?) bird close to Perth on the Tay (W. Evans, i7i lit., 

 23rd November 1886). There was also a previous record of another of the 

 same rare Siberian (or American ?) species given by Mr. Millais, which was 

 obtained at the poulterers' market in Edinburgh — Mr. Johnstone's. This 

 bird came to a grocer first in Leith Walk, who was in the habit of getting his 

 (poultry) eggs from the Orkney Isles, and so, no donbt, passed from his hands 

 into those of the game-dealer. There appears to me to be no certainty as 

 regards this specimen, and I prefer to retain it in square brackets until better 

 evidence be forthcoming. 



Having awaited my receipt of Millais' notes, I now give these here. 

 Millais writes : " On August 3, 1883, P. D. Malloch shot from a flock of 

 Golden Plovers at Almond Mouth, near Perth, a bird which I recognised as 

 being distinct from the common species. On showing it to Mr. Seebohm, he 

 identified it as Charadrius virginicus — the American Golden Plover ; but 

 now I think that it is referable to the above-mentioned species {i.e. under 

 Millais' heading 'The Lesser Golden Plover, Charadrius dominicus, P. L, 

 ISIuUer '), which is an inhabitant of Siberia, but which is nevertheless closely 

 allied to the American form (see Zool., 1886, p. 26). The specimen is an 

 adult male just casting its summer plumage." 



I have not had any opportunity of seeing these birds, nor do I know where 

 they are. If it be the Siberian form, one point I think is the colour of the 

 axillary feathers, which in that form are smoke-coloured, but these are also 

 smoke-coloured in the allied form. I jDrefer to bracket them together, and 

 thus follow our latest authority, Mr. H. E. Dresser. 



It ought not to be forgotten, in this connection, that Seebohm and I pro- 

 cured a Golden Plover (to all other appearances a true Ch. pluvialis), which 

 had some of the axillary feathers splashed with the smoky colour which dis- 

 tinguishes both of the forms of the smaller species — the names of which head 

 this section. 



As these two so-called sub-species are generally accepted as belonging to 

 the same, and not truly separable, and as there appears to be some indecision 

 as to whether they came from North America or from Asia, I prefer to retain 

 them meanwhile in brackets, their origin being uncertain. When saying that 

 their origin may be uncertain, I refer to the possibility that birds sent from a 

 distance for the purposes of fly-dressing may have got mixed up in the market 

 or in the retailer's hands, and that thereafter it is possible that they may 

 have been confused with others shot locally. That such possibilities and 



