264 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
spots are rather rounder and less jagged. The flight 
of the Golden Plover is beautifully strong, swift, 
and buoyant ; the commonest call-note is a clear, 
musical whistle. Like the Common Plover, it 
chiefly feeds on worms, insects, and slugs. 
PLOVER. 
{Vanellus vulgaris^ 
Green Plover, Lapwing, Peewit. — The Green 
Plover is in very many country districts of 
England the only every-day representative of the 
great tribe of shore or wading-birds {Limicolae — 
" mud-haunters embracing between forty and 
fifty British species. During spring and early 
summer it chiefly haunts open commons and 
arable land, and heathy or marshy meadows and 
pastures ; for the rest of the year it assembles into 
roving flocks, which are rather more general in 
their range. Most people are familiar with the 
Plover's antics on the wing, and its eccentric, musical 
cries when its breeding-places are disturbed in the 
spring ; so long, however, as there are eggs in the 
nest it is only the cock which attempts to divert 
attention by his noisy manoeuvres, the hen slipping 
quietly ofl^ to a distance before showing herself. 
When the young are hatched the hen plays the 
