364 
GOLDEN PLOVER. 
female lays four eggs, of a pale olive colour, variegated with 
blackish spots. They usually fly in small flocks, and have a 
shrill whistling note. They are very frequent in Siberia, 
where they likewise breed ; extend also to Kamtschatka, and 
as far south as the Sandwich Isles. In this latter place, Mr 
Pennant remarks, “ they are very small.” 
Although these birds are occasionally found along our sea 
coast, from Georgia to Maine, yet they are no where numerous; 
and I have never met with them in the interior. Our moun- 
tains being generally covered with forest, and no species of 
heath having, as yet, been discovered within the boundaries 
of the United States, these birds are probably induced to 
seek the more remote arctic regions of the continent, to breed 
and rear their young in, where the country is more open, and 
unencumbered with woods. 
The Golden Plover is ten inches and a half long, and 
twenty-one inches in extent; bill, short, of a dusky slate 
colour ; eye, very large, blue black ; nostrils, placed in a deep 
furrow, and half covered with a prominent membrane ; whole 
upper parts, black, thickly marked with roundish spots of 
various tints of golden yellow ; wing-coverts and hind part of 
the neck, pale brown, the latter streaked with yellowish; front, 
broad line over the eye, chin and sides, of the same, yellowish 
white, streaked with small pointed spots of brown olive ; 
breast, gray, with olive and white ; sides, under the wings, 
marked thinly with transverse bars of pale olive ; belly and 
vent, white ; wing-quills, black, the middle of the shafts 
marked with white ; greater coverts, black, tipt with white ; 
tail, rounded, black, barred with triangular spots of golden 
yellow ; legs, dark dusky slate ; feet, three-toed, with gene- 
rally the slight rudiments of a heel, the outer toe connected, 
as far as the first joint, with the middle one. The male and 
female differ very little in colour. 
