LITTLE RINGED PLOVER. 
299 
GRALLATORES. 
CHA RA DRI IDEE. 
LITTLE RINGED PLOVER. 
Charadrius minor. 
PLATE LXXVII. FIG. IV. 
This species was first pointed out as an inhabitant of 
Britain by Mr. Doubleday of Epping, who received it 
from Shoreham in Sussex, and so young that it must 
have been bred there. The person who shot it had 
long suspected, from its note, that it was a species yet 
unnoticed in this country. 
The late Mr. Hoy, who, during his continental rambles, 
had an opportunity of observing the habits of this species, 
favoured me with the following notice :— 
“ The Little Plover appears to be very rarely found 
on the sea-coast, but frequents in preference the banks 
of rivers, where it breeds. It lays its eggs on the sand, 
not a particle of grass or other material being used. It 
is very partial to sandbanks, forming islands, which are 
often met with in some of the large rivers of the Con¬ 
tinent. It may also frequently be found, during the 
breeding-season, upon those large extents of sand which 
are met with at some little distance from the borders of 
rivers, overgrown in part with a coarse, wiry grass/' 
The egg of this species is, for the most part, as might 
be expected, a fac-simile, except in size, of that of the 
ringed plover. The specimen from which the drawing 
