While the female is on the nest the male keeps watch at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, and utters a low warning cry in case of danger. The female leaves the nest sometimes by running, but oftener flies from it, and by marking the spot she rises from, it is easy to find the nest on the open level pampas. In the course of a morning's ride I have picked up as many as sixty-four eggs. During incubation the birds are excessively watchful and jealous, their irritability increasing with the growth of the chick in the shell; and at that time they will attack any bird of prey approaching the nest with amazing virulence. When approached by a human being they fly to meet him when he is still far from them, and hovering, with loud screams, over him, dash down at intervals, threatening to strike with their wing-spurs, coming very close to his head. Unable to intimidate the enemy with this show of violence, the bird changes its tactics, and, alighting at some distance, counterfeits the action of a bird seeking its nest. With well-acted caution and secrecy in its manner, it runs silently along, stooping low, and having found a slight nest-like depression on the surface, sits on it, half opens its wings, and begins gathering all the small sticks or straws within its reach and carefully arranges them about it, as most ground-breeding birds do when incubating. Sometimes also, like many other species, it tries to lead one away from the nest by feigning lameness; but the former instinct of seeking and sitting on an imaginary nest, which I have not observed in any other bird, seems far more complex and admirable. When sheep in a flock pass over the nest, the bird stands on it to defend its eggs; and then its loud cries and outspread wings often serve to bring the sheep, from motives of curiosity, about it. Even with a dozen sheep clustered round it the bird stands undaunted, beating their faces with its wings; but, unhappily for it, if the shepherd is following, the loud cries of the bird bring him to the spot, and the eggs so bravely defended are taken. 387. CHARADRIUS DOMINICUS, Müller. (AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER.) +Charadrius virginianus+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 501. +Charadrius virginicus+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 142; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 197 (Buenos Ayres); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 628 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 313 (Bahia Blanca); _Withington, Ibis_, 1888, p. 472 (Lomas de Zamora). +Charadrius dominicus+, _Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A._ i. p. 139. +Charadrius fulvus americanus+, _Seebohm, Plovers_, p. 100. _Description._--Above brownish black, with numerous irregular spots of yellow; forehead, superciliary stripe, and sides of neck white: beneath black; crissum whitish; axillaries smoky grey; bill black; feet dark grey: whole length 10·5 inches, wing 7·0, tail 2·8. _Female_ similar. _Young_: beneath dirty white, with greyish freckles.