(SLENDER-BILLED PLOVER.)
+Oreophilus ruficollis+, _Wagl., Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 143;
_Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 42 (Chupat), et 1878, p. 402 (Centr.
Patagonia). +Oreophilus totanirostris+, _Cab. J. f. O._ 1878, p.
199 (Sierra de Cordova). +Charadrius totanirostris+, _Seebohm,
Plovers_, p. 111.
_Description._--Above grey, varied with yellowish brown, and striped
with black on the back and wing-coverts; front and superciliaries
yellowish brown; stripe through the eye blackish; wings blackish
with white shafts, and slightly edged with white, their under
surface white; tail grey, with a black subterminal bar on the
lateral feathers: beneath grey, whole throat rusty reddish; large
ventral patch black; sides of belly and crissum cinnamomeous white;
bill black; feet yellowish: whole length 10·0 inches, wing 6·5, tail
3·0, bill from gape 1·5.
[Illustration: SLENDER-BILLED PLOVER. (Seebohm's 'Plovers,' p. 111.)]
_Hab._ Southern half of South America.
This pretty and curious Plover, with a Snipe-like beak, inhabits South
Patagonia and the Falklands. In the autumn it migrates north, and during
the cold season is found sparsely distributed throughout the Argentine
States, and passes into Bolivia and Peru. On the pampas it is most
abundant in April, but most of the birds seen during that month are
travellers to warmer latitudes.
It is a shy and exceedingly active bird, somewhat larger than the Golden
Plover in size, and in the Plata district is usually called _Chorlo
canela_, from the prevailing cinnamon-red tint of the plumage. It is
distinguished in the family it belongs to by the great length of its
straight slender probe-like bill, unlike that of any other Plover; and
it also has other structural peculiarities, the toes being exceptionally
short and thick, the frontal bone curiously modified, and the eyes
enormously large, like those of a nocturnal species. I do not think,
however, that it migrates by night, as I have never heard its peculiar
passage-cry after dark. A flock is usually composed of from a dozen to
thirty individuals, and when on the ground they scatter widely, running
more rapidly than any other Plover I am acquainted with. When they
travel the flight is swift and high, the birds much scattered. They
possess no mellow or ringing tones like other members of the Plover
family; on the ground they are silent, but when taking wing invariably
utter a long tremulous reedy note, with a falling inflection, and
usually repeated three or four times. The sound may be imitated by
striking on the slackened strings of a guitar. This cry is frequently
uttered while the birds are migrating.
On the Rio Negro in Patagonia I observed this Plover only in the winter
season; but Durnford found it nesting in the valley of the Sengel in
Chupat in the month of December.