STONE-CURLEW. 55 
certain decrease in their numbers, is attributabie mainly, 
no doubt, to the altered character of the locality when 
those young trees had lost their attractions, and de- 
veloped into extensive and thickly planted woods. Yet 
to show the extraordinary attachment of these curlews 
to their accustomed breeding grounds, Mr. Hewitson 
(“ Brit. Bds.’ Eges,” 8rd ed.), on the authority of Mr. 
Alfred Newton, states that “a particular spot where a 
pair of birds of this species had been accustomed to 
breed was resorted to by them for that purpose, long 
after it, and many acres around it, were planted with 
trees, and had become the centre of a flourishing 
wood.”* 
Once or twice, within the last four or five years, I 
have seen small flights of stone-curlews between Sher- 
ringham and Salthouse, during the months of June and 
July; and Mr. T. W. Cremer, of Beeston, near Cromer, 
informs me that a pair or two have hitherto bred, yearly, 
on some furze-covered hills at the back of his residence, 
where the poor of the parish have rights of commonage, 
but having neither heard nor seen them during the 
past summer (1867), he is doubtful whether they still 
continue to do so. About four years ago the Rev. C. 
Norris, of Briston, had eggs of this plover, taken on 
some rough ground not far from his house, but states 
that they have ceased for some time to breed on Briston- 
common, now about to be enclosed. A young bird was, 
however, taken in the summer of 1867, in the vicinity 
of Holt, about three miles from Briston; and a couple 
of eggs said to have been found at Cawston, near 
Aylsham, were shown me in the spring; and an adult 
bird and eggs from Witchingham. In August of the 
* Mr. Newton has since told me that this took place in the 
warren-coyert at Elveden, which extends over more than three 
hundred acres. 
