90 
ITS iMOORLAND HOME. 
most beautiful, and perhaps the best known species of its 
family. The plumage is soft, with the tints nicely blended, 
being in the upper parts broAvnish black, variegated with 
numerous yellow vspots, arranged along the margins of the 
feathers ; the sides of the head, neck, breast, and sides of 
the body, are light grey, spotted and streaked with brownish 
grey ; the throat and abdomen are white. Macgillivray 
has drawn such a beautiful and graphic picture of the 
Golden PJover in its moorland home, that we are tempted 
to transfer it to our pages : — 
* Many a time and oft, in the days of my youth, 
when the cares of life were few, and spirits expan- 
sive; and often, too, in later years, when I have made 
a temporary escape to the wilderness to breathe an 
atmosphere untainted by the effluvia of cities, and ponder 
in silence on the wonders of creative power, have I stood 
on the high moor, and listened to the welcome notes of 
the Plover, that seemed to come from the grey slopes of the 
neighbouring hills. Except the soft note of the Ring 
Plover, I know none so pleasing from the Grallatorial 
tribes. Amid the wild scenery of the rugged hills and 
sedgy valleys it comes gently and soothingly on the ear, 
and you feel, without being altogether conscious of its 
power, that it soothes the troubled mind as water cools the 
burning brow. The clear gentle tones of the Celtic maiden 
could not be more jDleasant to anyone than the summer 
note of the Golden Plover to the lover of birds and of 
nature. As you listen to it, now distant, now nearer, and 
near, and see the biixls with short flights approaching as if 
to greet you, though in reality with more fear than con- 
fidence, with anxiety and apprehension, the bright sun- 
shine that glances on their pretty breasts is faintly obscured 
by the white vapours that have crept up from the western 
valley, and presently all around is suffused with an opaline 
light, into the confines of which a bird is seen dimly to 
advance, then another, and a third. Who could represent 
the scene on canvas ? — a hollow hemisphere of white 
shining mist, on which are depicted two dark human figures, 
their heads suiTounded with a radiant halo, and three black- 
breasted Golden Plovers, magnified to twice their natural 
