4 CHARADRIUS HIATICULA. 
spread out tiieir 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 plumage. In the month of July, I found most of 
those that were breeding on Summers’s Beach, at the 
mouth of Great Egg Harbour, of a light shade ; but, 
about the beginning or middle of October, they had 
become much darker above, and their plumage other- 
wise 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 ; tail, nearly even, 
the lower half white, brown towards the extremity, 
the outer feather pure white, the next white with a 
single spot of black ; eye, black, and full, surrounded 
by a narrow ring of yellow ; legs, reddish yellow ; claws, 
blade ; lower side of the wings, pure white. 
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