.‘358 
RING PLOVER. 
has not the climate equally affected the present and the former 
sort, if both are the same species ? These inconsistencies 
cannot be reconciled but by supposing each to be a distinct 
species, which, though approaching extremely near to each 
other in external appearance, have each their peculiar notes, 
colour, and places of breeding.* 
The Ring Plover is seven inches long, and fourteen inches 
in extent ; bill, short, orange coloured, tipt with black ; front 
and chin, white, encircling the neck ; upper part of the breast, 
black ; rest of the lower parts, pure white ; fore part of the 
crown, black; band from the upper mandible covering the 
auriculars, also black ; back, scapulars, and wing-coverts, of a 
brownish ash colour ; wing-quills, dusky black, marked with 
an oval spot of white about the middle of each ; tail, olive, 
deepening into black, and tipt with white ; legs, dull yellow ; 
eye, dark hazel ; eyelids, yellow’. 
This bird is said to make no nest, but to lay four eggs of a 
pale ash colour, spotted with black, which she deposits on the 
ground.f The eggs of the light coloured species, formerly 
described, are of a pale cream colour, marked with small round 
dots of black, as if done with a pen. 
The Ring Plover, according to Pennant, inhabits America 
down to Jamaica and the Brazils ; is found in summer in 
Greenland ; migrates from thence in autumn ; is common in 
every part of Russia and Siberia ; was found by the navigators 
as low as Owyhee, one of the Sandwich Islands, and as light 
coloured as those of the highest latitudes.'! 
[Mr Ord adds to this description, in his reprint : “ After 
writing the above I had an opportunity of examining, com- 
paratively, two or three specimens of the European Ring 
* It is mentioned as abundant in all “ arctic America,” by the authors of 
the Northern Zoology, “ where it breeds in similar situations to the Golden 
Plover. Mr Hutchins reports, that the eggs, generally four, are dark coloured, 
spotted with black. The natives say, that, on the approach of stormy weather, 
this Plover makes a chirruping noise, and claps its wings.” — Ed. 
f Bewick. J Arct. Zool. p. 485. 
