CHARADRILTS, Lin. &C. PLOVER.
Bill shorter than the head, slender, straight, compres sed, mandibles protuberant, near the tip ; nostrils basal and longitudinal, cleft in the middle of a large membrane, which invests the nasal foss ; legs long, or moderately so, slender, with three toes before, the outer connected to the middle one by a short membrane, and the inner divided ; tail slightly rounded or even ; wings middle-sized and arm ed, either with a tubercle, which is sometimes scarcely perceptible, or with a spur.
Most plovers are partial to the muddy borders of great rivers and marshy situations, subsisting on small worms and various aquatic insects; but some of them affect dry sandy shores. They have their English appellation from the French pluvier, deduced from the Latin p/uviatis, be cause they are supposed to take pleasure in rain, or be cause they arrive in France from the north during the autumnal rains. In general they live in groups, more or less numerous, and are migratory, the adults preceding the young in their periodical flights. Most of them moult twice in the course of the year, and the males and females are seldom very dissimilar in appearance. So insensibly, too, do the species glide into one another, that their dis tinct extrication is attended with considerable difficulty. All nestle on the ground. They run much on the soil, pressing it with their feet, to bring out the worms and insects.
C. p/uvia /is, Lin. &c. Golden, or Green Plover ; Prov. Grey, or Whistling Plover ; and by some called Yellow Plover. Spotted with black and green above ; whitish beneath; breast grey, with dusky spots; back and legs grey. Weight between seven and eight ounces ; length ten inches and a half; and alar extent one foot and nearly seven inches. In May the female lays four eggs, of the size and shape of those of the lapwing, and of a cinereous olive colour, blotched with dusky. The young run as soon as hatched, and follow the mother to damp places in search of worms. At first they are clothed with a dusky down, and for a considerable time are incapable of flying. During the first year their upper parts are cinereous black, with cinereous yellow spots. In their early nonage the parents protect them with great care and courage, and will throw themselves in the way of dogs or men, and even simulate lameness, to draw off the attention of the intruder from their offspring.
The golden plover is a very common bird, being found in most parts of the known world. In this island it haunts open heathy moors and the sea-coast, in winter repairing to the uncultivated wastes of the north for breeding. In many parts of France these birds appear in flocks in spring and autumn. As their numbers speedily reduce the living aliment on which they subsist, in a given range, they are seldom observed to remain twenty-four hours in the same spot. The first fall of snow usually induces many of them to make for a more temperate climate ; and severe frost, by locking up the means of their sustenance, drives off the rest. Their manner of feeding keeps them
in constant motion, while several seem to act as sentinels, and, on the approach of danger, utter a whistling scream, which is the signal of flight. In flying they follow the di rection of the wind, ranged in very long and close lines, which form transverse bands in the air. The flocks dis perse towards evening, and each individual rests apart during the night ; but at day-break, the first that awakes sounds the call, and instantly they all re-unite. By imi tating this call the bird-catchers often decoy them within gun-shot. The golden plover, when plump, is relished by some epicures ; and the eggs are reckoned a delicacy.
C. morinellus, Lin. Ste. including C. Sibiricus, Tartari ens, and Asiaticus, of Gmelin and Latham. Dottrel. Breast ferruginous, a band over the eye, and a linear one on the breast, white ; crown, bill, and feet, grey.
The dottrel occurs plentifully in Northern Asia, and also in various parts of Europe, frequenting the muddy borders of rivers, and breeding in the moorish and moun tainous districts. It seems to make this island a resting place in its migratory flights to and from its breeding haunts, being seen on some of our heaths, downs, and moors, from April till the beginning of June, returning again in September, and halting till November. On the Wiltshire downs it resorts to the fallow ground, or to the new sown fields, for the sake of worms and beetles. They are fattest and most juicy in June, when they are most es teemed for the table. We hear of their being found in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Derbyshire ; and some of them are even said to breed in Cumberland, Westmore land, and the Highlands of Scotland, though it is not im probable, that their alleged eggs were those of the golden plover. Their ordinary breeding stations are, the north of Russia, Lapland, &c. Morinellus, and Dottrel, or Dotte rel, are intended to denote the stupidity of the bird, which is easily enticed to the snare. The country people are said to go in quest of it in the night, with a lighted torch or candle, when it will mimic the actions of the fowler ; for, when he stretches out an arm, it unfolds a wing, or, if he moves a foot, it does the same ; and, meanwhile, tame ly allows itself to be entangled in his net. According to Willoughby, six or seven persons used to go in company to catch dottrels, and, when they observed one, they set their net in an advantageous position, and, taking up a stone in each hand, went behind it, when, striking the stones against one another, they roused it from its slug gishness, and, by degrees, drove it into the net. But the more certain and expeditious execution of the gun has nearly suspended these devices.