358 
RING PLOVER. 
sand, on the beach. These facts being considered, it seems difficult to 
reconcile such difference of habit in one and the same bird. The Ring 
Plover is common in England, and agrees exactly with the one before 
us ; but the light colored species, as far as I can learn, is not found in 
Britain ; specimens of it have indeed been taken to that country, where 
the most judicious of their ornithologists have concluded it to be still the 
Ring Plover, but to have changed from the effect of climate. Mr. 
Pennant, in speaking of the true Ring Plover, makes the following 
remarks : " Almost all which I have seen from the northern parts of 
North America have had the black marks extremely faint, and almost 
lost. The climate had almost destroyed the specific marks ; yet in the 
bill and habit preserved sufficient to make the kind very easily ascer- 
tained." These traits agree exactly with the light colored species 
described in our fifth volume. But this excellent naturalist was perhaps 
not aware that we have the true Ring Plover here in spring and autumn, 
agreeing in every respect with that of Britain, and at least in equal 
numbers ; why, therefore, has not the climate equally affected the pre- 
sent and the former sort, if both are the same species ? These incon- 
sistencies cannot be reconciled but by supposing each to be a distinct 
species, which, though approaching extremely near to each other, in 
external appearance, have each their peculiar notes, color, and places 
of breeding. 
The Ring Plover is seven inches long, and fourteen inches in extent ; 
bill short, orange colored, tipped with black, front and chin white, 
encircling the neck ; upper part of the breast black ; rest of the lower 
parts pure white ; fore part of the crown black ; band from the upper 
mandible, covering the auriculars, also black ; back, scapulars, and 
wing-coverts, of a brownish ash color ; wing quills dusky black, marked 
with an oval spot of white about the middle of each ; tail olive, deepen- 
ing into black, and tipped with white ; legs dull yellow ; eye dark hazel, 
eyelids yellow. 
This bird is said to make no nest, but to lay four eggs, of a pale ash 
color, spotted with black, which she deposits on the ground.* The eggs 
of the light colored species, formerly described, are of a pale cream- 
color, marked with small round dots of black, as if done with a pen. 
The Ring Plover, according to Pennant, inhabits America, down to 
Jamaica and the Brazils. Is found in summer in Greenland ; migrates 
thence in autumn. Is common in every part of Russia and Siberia. 
Was found by the navigators as low as Owyhee, one of the Sandwich 
Islands, and as light colored as those of the highest latitudes. f 
* Bewick. t Arct. Zool. p. 485. 
