LITTLE RING-DOTTRELL.

Charadrius minor, Meyer.

Le Petit Pluvier a collier.

WE are indebted to our friend Mr. Henry Doubleday, of Epping, for the loan of an example of this elegant
little Plover, which he informs us was taken at Shoreham in Sussex. From the extreme youth of the
specimen transmitted to us, it is clear that it must have been bred on the spot; and it is worthy of notice that
the person who killed it affirms that he has long suspected the present bird to be a resident on that part of
the coast, from having remarked that he could always perceive a difference in the note of this bird from that
of either of the other species. Whether this Plover habitually resorts to our shores or not, it may now
reasonably claim a place in the Fauna of our island; and we are glad of the opportunity of introducing it to
the notice of British ornithologists, and still more so that the only British-killed specimen should have fallen
into the hands of an individual so zealous in the collection of our native birds as the gentleman above
mentioned. On the Continent it is by no means a scarce bird; we learn from the Manuel of M. Temminck that
it is abundant in the South of Germany as far as Italy, and that it is occasionally found as a bird of passage in
Holland, ever giving the preference to the borders of large rivers rather than the shores of the sea. We have
compared it with American specimens, and can attest that they are specifically different.

Its general habits, manners, and mode of life are strictly in accordance with the Common Ring-Dottrell ;
like that species it constructs its nest on the sand and shingles which border the water’s edge. The eggs are
four or five in number, of a yellowish white colour, marked with blotches of black and brown.

The adults of both sexes are nearly alike in plumage ; the young, on the contrary, do not acquire the collar
and black markings until the second year. From the Common Ring-Dottrell, the only bird in Europe with
which it could be confounded, it differs in being much smaller in size, in having the beak entirely black and
comparatively small, and in the fleshy colouring of the tarsi.

The adults have the bill black, a band of the same colour passing from the bill to the eye, and extending
over the ear-coverts ; the forehead pure white, above which on the crown a black band passes from eye to
eye; the occiput grey, beneath which a white circle spreads from the throat round the neck ; this is succeeded
by a black band, broad on the chest, but narrowing until it meets at the back of the neck ; the whole of the
upper plumage, with the exception of the rump, which is white, of a fine brownish grey; under surface white ;
feet and legs flesh colour ; irides hazel.

The young entirely want the black collar and facial markings, the crown of the head and face being
brownish grey; in every other respect they resemble the adults, except that a brownish tint pervades the
whole of the upper plumage and that every feather is edged with a lighter margin.

The Plate represents an adult, and a young bird of the first autumn, of the natural size.