GOLDEN PLOVER 
291 
GRALLA TORES. 
CHARADRIIDjE. 
GOLDEN PLOVER. 
Charadrius fluvialis. 
PLATE LXXYI. FIG. II. 
The Golden Plover, though never numerous, is yet 
pretty generally dispersed over our heathy moors during 
the breeding-season, and is then rarely met with except 
in pairs. It is a very watchful bird, and usually discovers 
itself long before you approach it, by its clear and plain¬ 
tive whistle, which may be heard at a great distance, and 
is very deceptive; upon hearing it when in search of 
their eggs, I have frequently expected to see the bird 
close beside me, and after anxiously searching for it with 
my eyes all around, have discovered it perched, at a dis¬ 
tance of three or four hundred yards, upon some hillock 
or rising ground, on which it mostly takes its stand. 
Though, as I have just stated, usually very wary and 
difficult to approach during the earlier days of incubation, 
it will sometimes, when the eggs are nearly hatching, 
almost allow itself to be trodden upon before it leaves 
the nest. 
The Golden Plover is one of the group of birds, com¬ 
prising the genera Tringa, Totanus, and Scolopax, which 
almost invariably lay four eggs, very large in proportion 
to the size of the bird, and placed in a hollow of the 
ground barely big enough to contain them; and this 
