One step, and there on the bare stones are four pear-shaped eggs lying close packed, with their narrow ends to the centre, and practically indistinguishable from the shingle on which they lie. In colour they are pale clay, uniformly covered with black spots and mottlings. As soon as the birds see that their treasure is discovered they fly round us, calling out continually till we pass on, leaving the hen to resume her duties. The young are covered with thick down when hatched, and are brown, mottled with black on the back; below white, with a black ring round the chest. They leave the nest as soon as they are hatched, and very shortly begin to feed themselves on the various spiders, flies, and other small insects that abound in such places. Both parents carefully watch and tend them, flying up on the approach of danger, while the young squat closely on the ground, where they become almost invisible. Their wings grow when at the age of five weeks, by which time they are nearly as large as their parents, and are then well able to take care of themselves and wander away to join the flocks of their own kind, or to amalgamate with other passing wanderers, and add their cries to swell the sounds of the shore, which are such a delight to every naturalist. The sexes are alike in plumage. General colour above pale sandy brown; below white. Forehead white, succeeded by a black band; lores and band across chest black. Legs bright yellow; beak black, yellow at its base. The young resemble the adults, but lack the black band on the forehead; the chest band is brown concolorous with the upper parts. The legs olive green. Generally distributed along the shore and in some inland sandy places throughout the British Isles. [Illustration: RINGED PLOVER _Ægialitis hiaticola_ Male (right). Young (left)] THE LITTLE RINGED PLOVER Ægialitis curonica (J. F. Gmelin) This species breeds in Scandinavia and throughout Europe, being rather scarcer in the west. To our shores it is only a very occasional straggler, not more than half-a-dozen authenticated instances being known. It resembles the preceding species, but is rather smaller in size, paler in colour, and the bill is narrower, longer in proportion, and wholly black. The best characteristic, however, is that the shafts of all the primaries, except the outer ones, are dusky, whereas in the Ringed Plover they are all flecked with white to form a conspicuous bar when the wing is opened. Length 6·5 in.; wing 4·5 in. THE KENTISH PLOVER Ægialitis cantiana (Latham)