84 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
of the bird on the spot, and, instead of translating it, 
simply put down the English word* as it was given to 
him.” 
CHARADRIUS HIATICULA, Linneus. 
RINGED PLOVER. 
The Ringed Plover, one of our most interesting 
indigenous species, may be said to possess, at least in 
Norfolk and Suffolk, two distinct phases of existence, 
being found, throughout the breeding season, not only 
on the coast but on the great sandy warrens in the 
interior, where its sprightly actions and melodious notes 
enliven those dreary wastes from about the middle of 
March up to the end of August, when young and old 
again retire to the sea-shore and the mouths of our tidal 
rivers, till the time once more arrives for this strange 
inland migration. To Mr. Salmon’s notes in 1836 
(“Mag. Nat. Hist.,” vol. ix., p. 522) on the habits of 
these birds in the neighbourhood of Thetford (as quoted 
by Yarrell and other authors), I am enabled to add the 
following particulars from the more recent observations 
of Mr. Alfred Newton in the same district—“ The ringed 
* That the word dotterel is “ peculiarly English,” I have the 
authority of Mr. W. Aldis Wright, the librarian of Trinity College, 
Cambridge and editor of Shakespear, who, in a Jetter to Mr. Alfred 
Newton, gives as the earliest instances of its occurrence, Drayton’s 
* Polyolbion,” song xxv. 1. 345; and Bacon’s “ Natural History,” 
cent. iii, 286. The former first published in 1622, the latter in 
1627. As further evidence, also, of its English origin, he quotes the 
following passage, under the head of Lincolnshire, from “ Camden’s 
Britannia {Holland’s translation, 1637; the same passage occuring, 
as well, in the Latin edition, 1607], “ dotterels, so named of their 
dolish foolishnesse, which, being a kind of birds as it were of an 
apish kinde, ready to imitate what they see done, are caught by 
candle light according to fowler’s gesture.” 
