EASTERN GOLDEN PLOVER. 
Mr. Frank Littler of Tasmania sent me the following : “ Small to medium 
flocks are to be seen round the mouth of the River Tamar, both sides, 
and also on the plateau in the Lake District in the midlands.” 
Legge {Emu, Vol. IV., p. 104, 1905), writing of this bird from Tasmania, 
says : “ This species frequents the so-called Great Lake Plain, which is a 
rolling down more than a plain, and comprises a good many thousand acres 
of grass and low bush land, much of which is stony and affords a favourable 
haunt for this Asiatic visitor. Only a few birds were met with in March, 1902, 
during a two days’ ‘ reconnoitring ’ trip made to the Lake by my son and 
myself. The Golden Plover is found more numerously on the open grassy 
country in the Midlands than elsewhere, and is nowhere a common bird in 
the island.” 
The bird was reported by Robson {Trans. New Zeal. Inst. 1883, Vol. XVI., 
p. 308, 1884) as breeding in New Zealand, but as the writer says it “ undergoes 
little or no change from summer to winter plumage,” it is obvious that he does 
not know the bird. It was found sitting on three eggs “ on the 9th of 
January ” ! ! ! Under these conditions we cannot accept this. 
Swinhoe records {Ihis 1863, p. 404) the birds breeding in Formosa. 
Layard also recorded its breeding on the islets off Anservata close to Noumea 
{Ihis 1878, p. 262). In the Ihis (1879, p. 107) it is noted as having a pair of 
downy chicks. In the same journal (1882, p. 532), as so much doubt was cast 
on the first statement, Layard says the “ female was followed by a couple of 
chicles a few days old on the 20th of April, 1887 ” ; and went on to say that 
several birds in full breeding-plumage had been seen there in May. 
Seebohm,* who found this bird breeding in Siberia, writes : “ On the 
5th of June I had the pleasure of shooting my first Asiatic Golden Plover. 
In its voice it exactly resembles the Grey Plover. I noticed all the three 
variations with which I am so familiar in the note of the latter bird, but 
remarked that the third variation, which I take to be a combination of the 
two others more rapidly uttered, is much more frequently uttered by the 
Asiatic Golden Plover than by the Grey Plover. I secured many specimens 
of this interesting bird as it passed the Koo-ray-i-Ka on migration. I did 
not observe it again until we reached lat. 69J° on the open Tundra just beyond 
the limit of forest growth. Not a trace of a pine tree was to be seen ; and 
the birches had dwindled down to stunted bushes scarcely a foot high . 
The tundra was hilly, with lakes and swamp and bogs in the wide valleys and 
plains. I found myself upon an excellent piece of Plover-ground, covered more 
with moss and lichen than with grass, sprinkled with patches of bare, pebbly 
ground, and interspersed with hummocky plains, where ground-fruits and gay 
* Ibis 1879, p. 153. 
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