[387.] CHARADRIUS DOMINICUS, Müller.
(AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER.)
Charadrius virginianus, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 501. Charadrius virginicus, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 142; Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 197 (Buenos Ayres); White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 628 (Buenos Ayres); Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 313 (Bahia Blanca); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 472 (Lomas de Zamora). Charadrius dominicus, Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A. i. p. 139. Charadrius fulvus americanus, Seebohm, Plovers, p. 100.
Description.—Above brownish black, with numerous irregular spots of yellow; forehead, superciliary stripe, and sides of neck white: beneath black; crissum whitish; axillaries smoky grey; bill black; feet dark grey: whole length 10·5 inches, wing 7·0, tail 2·8. Female similar. Young: beneath dirty white, with greyish freckles.
Hab. America.
This closely allied representative of the Golden Plover of Europe, from which it is distinguishable mainly by its rather larger size and smoky-grey axillaries, visits South America in autumn.
The American Golden Plover is abundant and well known to everyone by its native name Chorlo throughout Southern Argentina. Its wild clear notes are first heard about the last week in August; and among the first comers many individuals are seen still wearing the nuptial dress. After their long journey from the Arctic regions they are lean and not worth shooting; two months later they become excessively fat, and are then much appreciated by gourmets. But although so regular in their arrival they do not regularly visit the same localities every season; the bird may be abundant in a place one year and scarce or absent altogether the next. During the spring, from September to December, they prefer open plains with short grass and in the neighbourhood of wet or marshy ground; at the end of December, when the giant thistle (Carduus mariana), which often covers large areas of country, has been burnt up by the sun and blown to the ground, they scatter about a great deal in flocks of from one to four or five hundred. At noon, however, they all resort to a lagoon or marshy place containing water, congregating day after day in such numbers that they blacken the ground over an area of several acres in extent; and at a distance of a quarter of a mile the din of their united voices resembles the roar of a cataract. As population increases on the pampas these stupendous gatherings are becoming more and more rare. Twenty-five years ago it was an exceptional thing for a man to possess a gun, or to use one when he had it; and if Chorlos were wanted, a Gaucho boy, with a string a yard long with a ball of lead attached to each end, could knock down as many as he liked. I have killed them in this way myself, also with the bola perdida—a ball at the end of a long string thrown at random into a cloud of birds.
The habits, flight, and language of the Golden Plover need not be spoken of here, as this bird has been so often and exhaustively described by North-American ornithologists. The only peculiarity it possesses which I have not seen mentioned, is its faculty of producing a loud sound, as of a horn, when a few passing birds, catching sight of others of their kind on the ground below, descend violently and almost vertically to the earth with unmoving wings. This feat is, however, rarely witnessed; and on the first occasion when I heard the sound high above me, and looked up to see half a dozen Chorlos rushing down from the sky, the sight almost took my breath away with astonishment.
The Golden Plover appears to be most abundant on the pampas between the thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, but how far south its range extends has not yet been ascertained. The return migration begins early in March, and yet Mr. Barrows met with it in the neighbourhood of Bahia Blanca and on the Sierra de la Ventana from February 8 to March 19. During most of this time he says it was abundant in flocks of from twenty to two hundred birds, which appeared to be moving uniformly south or south-west.