PLOVERS. ' 63

In September it is common on our marshes and damp meadows, being much pursued as a game bird. Its breeding place is the barren grounds of the desolate Northern Regions.

The Ring-neck I’lover is a smaller and much more abundant bird. It is the first to return from the North, becoming common in August. Indeed, some few individuals nest here, about lonely shores and islands. I have seen them in breeding time at St. Peter’s Island. The colori is dark ashy—brown with a black ring on the breast. It nests in a grassy spot on the marsh and lays {our speckled grey eggs.

The Pale Ring-neck is a very light-colored Plover that may be seen any time during summer on the sea-piled shingle beach in front of a salt marsh. Here the bird is constantly running about for insects on which it feeds, and, when disturbed, uttering a peculiarly sad wailing cry which is more than usually consonant with the grandeur and solitariness of the scenes which it frequents. The ceaseless voice of the deep, the grand soli- tude of the shore, the ever restless buffeting' wind find a strange accompaniment in this sad, wail-

in voice runnin throuwh the discord of nature. g a