HEGIALITIS MONACHUS.

Head, forepart of the neck, and a band across the upper part of the back sooty black; back of the neck, and all
the under surface white ; back, shoulders, and tertials greyish brown; centre of the wing and the basal por-
tion of the internal webs of the primaries and secondaries white, the rest black; two middle tail-feathers
black ; the three next on each side white at the base and tip, and black in the centre; the remaining feathers
wholly white ; bill orange at the base, and black at the tip ; legs orange.

Total length, 82 inches ; bill, $5 wing, 51; tail, 21; tarsi, 1.

Charadrius Monachus, Geoff. in Mus. Paris.— Wagl. Syst. Av., sp. 15.
cucullatus, Vieill., Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat., p. 136.
SEigialitis Monachus, Gould, Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IT.

 

 

 

Since the publication of the second part of my Synopsis above-quoted, I have received examples of this
species direct from Van Diemen’s Land, and I am consequently enabled to state that this is one of the locali-
ties it inhabits, with which fact I was previously unacquainted. The specimens I have recently obtained
exhibit to our notice a peculiarity in their plumage, from which I am led to believe that, contrary to what
obtains in the other members of the group, the black colouring of the head is merely a seasonal character,
which is doubtless only assumed during summer. This peculiarity I have illustrated by figuring a bird with
the black head, and another fully adult in which the head exhibits only a slight indication of the black
marking. A somewhat similar circumstance may be observed in its British analogue, the Common Ring
Dottrell, which assumes a richer style of colouring during the summer and breeding-season ; but this
character is never so nearly obliterated as in the present species.
Habitat. Van Diemen’s Land.