162 
Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
Eggs. — Four in number, pear-shaped, and of a creamy-buff to 
a clay-coloured ground, with small blackish spots and lines, 
sometimes forming small blotches near the larger end of the 
egg ; the underlying spots purplish-grey, very small and 
scarcely visible. Axis, i'3-i'5 ; diam., o'p-si'os. 
Mr. Robert Read says that he has noticed that the eggs 
of this bird vary considerably in the ground-colour, accord- 
ing to locality, those laid on the dark pebbles near inland 
lakes and rivers being much duller than those laid on the 
bright yellow sea-sand. As far as my experience goes, the 
eggs, though laid in a sandy hollow, are generally surrounded 
by pebbly beach, many of the stones of which so nearly re- 
semble the eggs themselves as to make the latter very diffi- 
cult to find. 
11. THE LITTLE RINGED SAND-PLOVER. iEGIALITIS DUBI. 4 . 
Charadrius dubius, Scop. Del. Faun, et Flor. Insubr. ii. p. 93 
(1786). 
Charadrius minor (W. & M.), Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 128 
(1850) j Seebohm, Brit. B. iii. p. 16 (1885). 
jEgialitis curo 7 iicus (Gm.), Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 491, pi. 524 
(1876) ; B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 159 (1883) ; Saunders, 
ed. Yarrell’s Brit. B. iii. p. 262 (1883); id. Man. Brit. B. 
p. 525 (1889); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxx. (1895). 
/Egialitis dubia, Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 263 
(1896). 
Adult Male. — General colour above light brown, a little darker 
on the rump and central upper tail-coverts j sides of rump 
and lateral upper tail-coverts pure white ; wing-coverts like the 
back, the feathers round the bend of the wing darker brown ; 
primary quills blackish, internally lighter brown, with dark shafts 
to all the primaries except the first, which is white ; secondaries 
dusky, lighter and more ashy-brown internally; inner secondaries 
smoky-brown, with a good deal of white on both webs, the long 
inner secondaries like the back ; tail-feathers ashy-brown, tipped 
with white, and with a broad sub-terminal black bar, the outer 
feathers more distinctly edged with white, the two outermost 
almost entirely white, with a black patch on the inner web cor- 
responding to the sub-terminal bar on the rest of the feathers ; 
