150 
RINGED PLOVER. 
The parents, however, always remain near the spot to protect 
them from injury, and probably in cold rainy or stormy weather, 
to shelter them with their bodies. The eggs are three, some- 
times four, large for the bird, of a dun clay colour, and marked 
with numerous small spots of reddish purple. 
The voice of these little birds, as they move along the sand, 
is soft and musical, consisting of a single plaintive note occa- 
sionally repeated. As you ajjproach near their nests, they seem 
to court your attention, and the moment they think you observe 
them, they spread out their wings and tail, dragging themselves 
along, and imitating the squeaking of young birds; if you turn 
from them they immediately resume their proper posture until 
they have again caught your eye, when they display the same 
attempts at deception as before. A flat dry sandy beach, just 
beyond the reach of the summer tides, is their favourite place 
for breeding. 
This species is subject to great variety of change in its plu- 
mage. In the month of July I found most of those that were 
breeding on Summers’s Beach, at the mouth of Great Egg-Har- 
bour, such as I have here figured; but about the beginning or 
middle of October they had become much darker above, and 
their plumage otherwise varied. They were then collected in 
flocks; their former theatrical and deceptive manoeuvres seemed 
all forgotten. They appeared more active than before, as well 
as more silent; alighting within a short distance of one, and 
feeding about without the least appearance of suspicion. At the 
commencement of winter they all go off towards the south. 
This variety of the Ringed Plover is seven inches long, and 
fourteen in extent; the bill is reddish yellow for half its length, 
and black at the extremity ; the front and whole lower parts pure 
white, except the side of the breast, which is marked with a 
curving streak of black, another spot of black bounding the front 
above; back and upper parts very pale brown, inclining to ashy 
white, and intermixed with white; wings pale brown, greater 
coverts broadly tipt with white; interior edges of the secondaries, 
and outer edges of the primaries white, and tipt with brown; 
