78 
PIPING PLOVER. 
Both the three-toed and four-toed species that form my subgenus 
Charadrius, and are so easily known by their greater size and want 
of a collar, live in large damp meadows, or open and muddy 
champaign countries. They hardly ever alight on the beach, or 
even accidentally on river shores. During the nuptial season the 
males assume a brighter vesture. They do not breed in the 
temperate climates of Europe or North America, but only show 
themselves there in autumn and winter. Their flesh is exquisite 
food. 
The Ring-Plovers on the contrary are shore birds in their 
habits, and may be known by their diminutive size and broad 
white collar. They frequent invariably the banks of rivers and 
sandy sea beaches, and it is by accident if they are seen at a dis¬ 
tance from their favourite element. Their plumage does not 
undergo extreme changes, and merely from darker to lighter. 
Several species breed in our climates, and their flesh is hardly 
esculent. Although not marked by any striking physical cha¬ 
racter, we regard the extensive group jEgialitis as a very natural 
one : it has numerous species in every part of our globe. The 
three European are modelled precisely after the same type as the 
present species, while the three other North American have each 
a strong distinctive character peculiar to itself: in the Semi- 
palmated it is the webbed toes, in the Wilson’s the powerful and 
acute bill, and in the Kildeer its large stature and oddly coloured 
wedge-shaped tail. 
In all our Plovers the bill is shorter than the head, rather 
slender, straight, cylindrical, depressed at base, obtuse and 
somewhat turgid at tip: the upper mandible is longitudinally 
furrowed two-thirds of its length, the lower is shorter: a remark¬ 
able character consists in the small opening of the bill, which is 
hardly cleft beyond the origin of the feathers. This peculiarity 
affords an excellent means of distinguishing them from the 
