DUNLIN. 379 



passing to and fro along the ranks, perhaps acting as 

 aides-de-camp to this great feathered army. 



I have no reason to suppose that the dunlin ever 

 remains to breed in Norfolk, even though Mr. Lubbock 

 in his " Fauna " (speaking of *' the stint or oxbird of 

 our beach "), says (p. 117), " some breed as far inland 

 as the warrens about Swaffham and Thetford." This 

 remark, however, as Mr. Lubbock has recently informed 

 me, was founded entirely upon notes supplied him by the 

 late Mr. J. D. Salmon, with reference to the habits of 

 the ringed-plover and the occasional appearance of the 

 dunhn in summer, about Thetford. Had Mr. Salmon 

 actually found the latter breeding in that neighbourhood 

 I am quite sure that so interesting a fact would have 

 been communicated with his other valuable contribu- 

 tions to the " Magazine of Natural History," but neither 

 in that journal nor yet in his MS. diary of Ornitho- 

 logical events,^ during his residence at Thetford, is 

 there a single entry leading to such a conclusion. Mr. 

 Alfred Newton, also, who, living close to Thetford 

 Warren for a good many years, had unusual facilities 

 for observing the species breeding there, assures me 

 that the dunlin never did so to his knowledge, or to 

 that of the warreners, but that a stray bird would occa- 

 sionally make its appearance there in the month of 

 May. Thus on the 24th of May, 1850, a male bird, 

 recognised as such by its flight and note, was seen by 

 his brother on Thetford Warren, but it could not be 

 found again though search was made on subsequent 

 days; and again on the 19th of May, 1851, a female 

 was shot on the warren. In 1853, during the flood 

 which devastated the south-west corner of the county, 



* For tlie perusal of these carefully-kept notes, now in his 

 possession, I am iadebted to my friend Mr. H. Buckley, of 

 Edgbaston, Birmingham. 



3 c 2 



