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Show 138 MR. II. SWINHOE ON CHINESE PLOVERS. [Mar. 10, This little Plover is a common winter visitant to all parts of the China coast. I procured it as far south as Hainan. In 1860 I found it breeding at Talien Bay ; and lately I saw it in May up the Yangtsze, in Szechuen. I have looked through m y series, and find them all of one species, identical with birds shot in England. A specimen from India is also the same. Jerdon gives a smaller race, AEg. minutus (Pall.), as occurring also in India. This I have never seen in China. 4. JEGIALITES CANTIANUS (Lath.). The true Kentish Plover comes down the Chinese coast in winter in great numbers; and I have a good series of them. They vary somewhat in the length of their bills; so I find does the home bird. I have one shot at Amoy in April, which is in full summer plumage and not to be distinguished from an English bird shot in May, kindly lent me by Mr. Harting for comparison. I have also skins from India sent me by Mr. Blyth. Amoy 6*: Bill in front *65 inch ; wing 4*4; tarse 1*05. Bill black. Legs deep leaden-grey. 5. JEGIALITES DEALBATUS, sp. nov. Under this name I propose to distinguish the form of Kentish Plover that is resident on the south coast of China, including Formosa and Hainan (see P. Z. S. 1863, p. 52). Bill black, with an ochreous-yellow spot at base of lower mandible. Legs light yellowish brown or flesh-colour. In other respects like a washed-out AEg. cantianus. cS . Bill 7 5 inch; wing 4'45 ; tarse 1*07. The male in summer plumage always has the latero-pectoral patch more or less black, as also the band over the white forehead. The loral streak sometimes shows in pale rufescent brown, sometimes in black spots, and is rarely entirely wanting. The crown has generally some rufescence; and a rufescent tinge often washes over the back. The female in July has a slight rufescence on the head, and a rufescent brown breast-patch. She seldom acquires any of the dark markings of the male. I procured five specimens of this resident race in Hainan in March, and they were all marked as in summer. In Amoy they generally lose the dark markings in winter. I have hitherto merely marked this bird as a variety of the Kentish Plover; but as Cassin has separated a similar local form found in California and on the South-American coast, I think it as well to distinguish our bird. The bill and the legs afford the only reliable characters for discrimination. No one can doubt the fact of our local form being derived from AEg. cantianus, and that the influence of climate and other local causes have effected a change in the constitution of the bird. It affects to acquire the breeding-plumage of its progenitor, but its system is apparently too weak ; yet it breeds and multiplies, and seems otherwise a healthy race. In some specimens of true AEg. cantianus I notice a paleness at the base of the |
