12 
are figured, tlie latter is represented with the basal interdigital web, and the former without it, an error for 
which the artist is doubtless responsible. 
Till of late years this handsome Wader appears to have been of very rare occurrence. Forster’s 
original specimen was obtained at Queen Charlotte’s Sound, where, as he states, it was called Tutu- 
ruatu by the natives. Mr. Percy Earl (about the year 1844) found a pair on the ocean-beach near 
Port Chalmers, and records it “ as a very rare species ” in that locality. 
Owing, however, to the increased activity of ornithological research in the colony, it has been 
discovered to be comparatively plentiful on various parts of our coast, both north and south. The 
mouth of the Piako river, in the TIauraki Gulf, the broad fiats of Manukau harbour, and the sand- 
spits off Tauranga are some of the localities where flocks have been met with in the spring and 
autumn. In the South Island, some of the favourite resorts are Queen Charlotte’s Sound and the 
various inlets on the eastern and south-eastern coasts. It is also recorded from the Chatham 
Islands, where it has been found breeding *. 
I'here are two specimens in the Canterbury Museum from the last-mentioned locality ; one of 
these is marked d , and the sex of the other is undetermined : but both examples are in very indifferent 
plumage. 
It hunts about for its food among the sand and dry ooze in a very diligent manner, and 
associates freely with the flocks of Godwit, both on their common feeding-ground and when the latter 
crowd upon the high banks, during the alternation of the tides, in the manner so familiar to those who 
have studied their habits. Individually its movements are very graceful and it is undoubtedly the 
most beautiful of our Plovers. 
This bird has the same peculiar alarm-cry of ‘ click-click ’ which denotes the presence on the 
sands of the Banded Dottrel. This cry is also uttered on the wing, being repeated several times in 
rapid succession. 
There can be no doubt, I think, that the so-called Thinornis rossii, of which there is a single 
specimen in the British Museum, brought by the Antarctic Expedition from Auckland Island, is the 
young of the present species ; and I have described it in that character. 
* In the ‘ New-Zealand Journal of Science,’ vol. ii. pp. 508-9, there is the following interesting account of its breeding- 
habits : — “ It is content with collecting a few leaves of grass, which are bent and twisted into a circular form just about large 
enough to contain the eggs, which are protected by this flimsy structure as it keeps them together. I have the eggs from the 
southern part of this island as well as a series from the Chatham group ; one of the nesting-places in the last-named habitat 
offers such interesting features that it is worth being recorded and described. To the north-by-west of the main Chatham island 
lies a small group of rocky islets known as ‘ The Sisters,’ or llangitutahi. One of those wave-beat islets, rising to some 150 feet 
above the sea, having an area of about five acres only, affords a nesting-place to the Shore-Plover. This very exposed and 
unsheltered site apparently is shared only by the huge Albatros and the giant Petrel, which there rest awhile from almost cease- 
less wanderings over the surrounding ocean. Exposed to gales that sweep over a vast unbroken expanse of sea and break against 
this little speck of rock, the only screen that may shelter the home of the Shore-Plover is the tussock of wiry-grass or saw-edged 
carcx, for no tree is there found to lend a friendly shelter. The eggs, three in number, are ovoido-couical, ovoid, with the 
smaller end blunt or somewhat pyriform ; smooth, sub-shining, pale or warm stonc-oolour, freely sprinkled with blackish-brown 
or almost black irregular marks, angular fines and dots ; pale greenish-white, very much scribbled over with fine irregularly 
shaped marks and minute dots, these becoming more conspicuous towards the larger end, around which they form an unevenly 
defined zone ; stone-colour, more or less covered with irregularly shaped marks of umber-brown ; pale stone-colour with a faint 
greenish tint, sparingly sprinkled below the bilge with very small blackish -brown freckles, some of which seem sunk into the 
surface, the upper portion splashed with bolder marks of umber and deep chestnut-brown ; rich warm stono-colour, abundantly 
covered with blotches of chestnut and umber-brown interspersed with minute dots, freckles, or fine linear scribbling marks of 
dark brown.” — Foils, 
