NOTES. 53 



the birds is exactly that of our birds, which have been bred 

 in the open park. The fact that there were two together also 

 rather points to their being our birds, and if they are shot I 

 think they will probably be found to be White-necked 

 Cranes." — Eds.] 



RINGED PLOVER BREEDING INLAND IN 

 NORTHUMBERLAND. 

 Mr. Abel Chapman, in his Bird-Life of the Borders (2nd ed., 

 p. 33) says : " The Ringed Plover {Mgialitis hiaticola) is 

 strictly marine in its haunts, and there is no local evidence 

 of its breeding inland. Yet we have observed it frequenting 

 the wide haughs of the Upper Coquet (twenty-five miles from 

 the sea) at the end of March." Mr. Howard Saunders, 

 in his Manual of British Birds (2nd ed., p. 539) says : 

 " Throughout the British Isles the Ringed Plover is generally 

 distributed along the flat portions of the coast, as well as on 

 sandy warrens and inland lakes at some distance from the 

 sea, and on migration it is also found by the banks of rivers." 



It may be of interest to record that I found two nests on 

 the Upper Coquet, more than thirty miles, as the crow flies, 

 from the sea, on April 25th and 26th, 1911. In 1909, at 

 about the same date, the birds were in the same district, but 

 appeared not to have laid, while in 1910 there were no traces 

 of them. George T. Atchison. 



[With reference to the above note, Mr. G. Bolam kindly 

 sends us the following extract from his promised book 

 on the Birds of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders : 

 " The Ringed Plover breeds numerously on the shores of 

 Northumberland, as also in East Lothian, and follows the 

 course of many of our larger rivers far inland. Thus it nests 

 on gravel beds on the Tweed, at the Lees, above Coldstream 

 (where it was noticed so long ago as 4th May, 1842 — Hist. 

 Berwickshire Nat. Club, Vol. II., p. 4 — and where I myself found 

 it nesting in 1879 and have seen it frequently at short intervals 

 since), and at Carham and Kelso (noticed there in 1868 — op. cit., 

 Vol. VII., p. 305 — and many times since), on the Teviot 

 {op. cit., Vol. VIII., J). 260, and frequently since) ; and on 

 several of the tributary streams, as the Leader and Allan 

 Water {op. cit.. Vol. VII., p. 305, etc), while I have seen it 

 also in summer on the Lyne above Peebles, and on Gala Water. 

 In Northumberland it breeds in several places on the Coquet 

 above Rothbury, where I first found it, in the neighbourhood 

 of Thropton, in 1887, and have since seen it at Holy Stone, 

 and as high up as Alwinton ; at Bromlee Lough, where 1 



