Fam. I. CHARADRIIDAE.–Sub-fam. 1. _Charadriinae._–The Dotterel (_Eudromias morinellus_), breeds on the fells and tundras of Northern Europe and Asia, as well as on the mountains of Scotland, Transylvania, Styria, and Bohemia–if not still in the English Lake District; in winter it migrates to Palestine and North Africa. The colour is ashy-brown, with black crown and nape, towards the latter of which the white superciliary streaks run down; the throat is whitish, the fore-neck brown, divided by a white gorget from the orange-chestnut lower breast; the abdomen is black, the lateral rectrices are tipped with white. The young are more rufous above, and grey and white below. Three olive eggs with brown blotches are laid in a depression of the mossy ground, the parents being tamer than most Plovers at the nest. _E. veredus_ inhabits Mongolia, wintering in the Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and Australia; _E. australis_ is confined to the last country; _E._ (_Zonibyx_) _modestus_, the only four-toed species of the genus, ranges from Tarapacá and Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. _Charadrius pluvialis_, the Golden Plover, breeds on the higher British moorlands, and reaches from Northern Europe to the Lena in Asia, overlapping about the Yenisei _C. fulvus_, with grey instead of white axillaries, which extends to Bering Sea and–as the stouter, shorter-toed race _C. dominicus_–to Greenland. Both the latter have occurred in England. The plumage is black, densely spotted with yellow above, the forehead and superciliary streaks are white, as are the sides of the body. In winter the under parts are nearly white. At that season the various species migrate southwards as far as Cape Colony, India, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and Chili. The loud clear whistle of the Golden Plover is a characteristic sound in summer on our sub-alpine hills, where the bird deposits four rich olive-brown eggs in a hollow in the herbage; it is very wary at the nest. The Grey Plover, _Squatarola helvetica_, with a distinct hind toe and black axillaries, is browner than the foregoing three-toed species in summer, and greyer in winter; it visits us from autumn to spring, but breeds in the far north of Eastern Europe, Asia, and America, reaching Cape Colony, Ceylon, and Tasmania on migration. _Erythrogonys cinctus_ of Australia, and {273}the long-billed _Oreophilus ruficollis_ of South America from Peru and Argentina to Patagonia and the Falklands, are nearly allied forms; while the rufous New Zealand _Charadrius_ (?) _obscurus_ apparently somewhat resembles the Dotterel in its habits and eggs. [Illustration: FIG. 57.–Ringed Plover. _Aegialitis hiaticola._ × ⅖.]