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(Tringa Squatarola, Linn.—Le Vanneau Pluvier, Buff.)
THE length of this bird is about twelve inches The bill is black; the head, back and wing coverts dusky brown, edged with greenish ash, and some with white; cheeks and throat white, marked with oblong dusky spots; belly, thighs, and rump white; sides marked with a few dusky spots; outer webs of the quills black; lower parts of the inner webs of the first four white; tail marked with alternate bars of black and white: legs dull green; hind toe small. In the Planches Enumineés this bird is represented with eyes of an orange colour; there is likewise a dusky line extending from the bill underneath each eye, and a white one above it; but variations like these are common in many of the same species of birds. The Grey Plover is not very common in Britain, but it sometimes appears in large flocks on the sea coasts: it is somewhat larger than the Golden Plover. Its flesh is said to be very delicat.
Montagu pronounces the Grey Plover to be the Grey Sandpiper in the winter plumage, and he doubts not the Tringa Helvetica, or Swiss Sandpiper, is the same bird in the breeding plumage. Latham also seems to be of this opinion, which is now fully ascertained to be the correct one; a specimen strikingly illustrating the fact, is now in the Newcastle Museum. The bill, size, and position of the eye resembel the Plover Family, but the back toe does not. It approaches in that, the genus Vanellus of Temminck (after Brisson) who terms it the Vanellus Melanogaster.
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