The American Golden Plover 
(hypothetical) Pacific Golden Plover ( Pluvialis dominions fulvus), which breeds in 
western Alaska and which has been taken as far south as Comox, Vancouver Island 
(Brooks). 
Authorities.—Gambel ( Pluvialis virginiaca) , Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 
2,1., 1849, p. 220 (coast of Calif.); Cooper and Suckley, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. xii., 
i860, p. 229 (San Francisco); Cooke, U. S. Dept. Agric., Biol. Surv. Bull., no. 35, 1910, 
p. 80 (Santa Cruz, p. 84; distr. and migr.); ibid., U. S. Dept. Agric., Bull. no. 185, 1915, 
p. 16, fig. 4, map (migr.); Grinnell, Bryant and Storer, Game Birds Calif., 1918^.458 
(desc., occurrence, habits). 
THE RECORDED appear¬ 
ances of this species are so few, only 
four or five in number, that the 
bird is scarcely entitled to a rating 
above “accidental” in California. 
Indeed the word “accidental,” never 
quite accurate in the estimation of 
any natural occurrence, most nearly 
describes the wide deviation from 
custom of those golden waifs which 
straggle down the Pacific Coast 
instead of keeping to the eastern 
route. 
Alleged Californian occurrences 
are worthless without specimens. 
The plumage of immature Black- 
bellied Plovers seen during fall mi¬ 
grations sometimes exhibits a fulvous, 
or tawny, character which would 
deceive the very elect. The speck¬ 
ling of P. dominicus is really “von 
goldt,” but like other appearances 
of the precious metal its determina¬ 
tion requires the acid test. 
The migration route of the 
American Golden Plover is in many 
respects the most remarkable of any 
species in the New World. Dis¬ 
tributed in summer along the Arctic 
Coast of America from Hudson Bay 
to Bering Strait, the birds at the 
close of the breeding season move 
Taken near Santa Barbara Photo by the Author 
NOT A BIRD IN SIGHT 
1297 
