GOLDEN PLOVER. 75 
sounds came the murmuring of smaller migrants, such as 
thrushes and finches.* Many strange rumours were, of 
course, circulated at the time, but, with the exception 
of such species as I have here named, I could not ascer- 
tain that any others had been satisfactorily identified. 
Amongst them, owls were said to have been heard 
hooting by the road-side, and early in the evening large 
flocks of birds, like thrushes or redwings, to have been 
seen settling on trees and houses in the neighbourhood 
of the city; but none appear to have been shot. The 
extraordinary noise of the plover, induced most probably 
by the coming storm, was sufficient to awaken many 
people during the night, and thus afforded evidence of 
the presence of these birds for many hours, but it is 
Larus.” Mr. Alfred Newton also informs me that on more than 
one occasion during the last few years, in the month of August, he 
has listened to similar flights over Cambridge and its vicinity, 
and always on dark nights. From their notes he has supposed the 
majority to consist of black-headed gulls, mixed with golden plover, 
and he has at times detected the cry of the long-billed curlew. 
Mr. Cornewall Simeon, writing from Winchester, in the “ Field,” 
of December 8th, 1866, records a very remarkable gathering of 
birds,of various kinds, over that city on the evening of the 20th, 
which were listened to by him from nine o’clock until twelve, when 
he went to bed. The night was “dark, fine, and perfectly still,” 
and by far the larger number appeared from their notes to be 
fieldfares and redwings, accompanied by some dunlins and ring- 
dotterel, occasionally a snipe or two were heard, and by the rattle 
of the wings at times, some larger birds, supposed to be wild fowl. 
It was impossible, he says, to form any estimate of their number, 
as they passed steadily over in those three hours, only a few 
occasionally “circling round as if dazzled by the lights of the 
town,” but the air seemed literally full of them. 
* The migration of various classes of birds, to our coast, in one 
large body, as observed during the day, is specially referred to 
by Sir Thomas Browne, who says: “teal, woodcocks, fieldfares, 
thrushes, and small birds, come and alight together; for the most 
part some hawks and birds of prey attending them.” 
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