292 
GOLDEN PLOVER. 
by the time frost or winter has set in, they may 
be found assembled on the sea shores in flocks, the 
produce of the breeding grounds of the district. 
Before retiring to the shores, the flocks may be 
sometimes approached, or they come within shot 
in the wheels which it is their habit to make 
around any thing that disturbs them. On the 
coast they are much more shy, though, from the 
numbers composing the flock, the discharge of the 
fowler is often successful at a very long distance. 
A very extended or cosmopolite distribution has 
been given to this bird, but, of its range, we may 
at once say we do not know the correct limits. 
We are inclined, at this moment, to consider it 
limited almost to Europe alone, its place elsewhere 
being taken up by the C. Virginianus. We have 
never seen an extra European specimen of the 
British Golden Plover. Sweden, as mentioned by 
Mr. Yarrell, on the authority of Professor Nilson 
and Mr. Loyd ; Norway, where Mr. Hewitson 
saw it ; Hammerfest, as stated by Mr. Chisty ; 
and probably Lapland,* with suitable localities 
in other western districts of the European Conti- 
nent, may be held as a certain extent of range ; 
but we still think Faroe, Greenland, and Iceland, 
questionable. The American and Arctic birds are 
undoubtedly distinct, and, besides their smaller 
size and other distinctions, may be at once sepa- 
rated by the hair-brown colour of the underwing 
coverts and axillary feathers, which, in the British 
* Linn. Tour in Lapland. 
