RINGED PLOVER. 85 
plover, or ‘stonehatch’ as it is locally termed, breeds 
from March to June on Thetford warren. Whether 
the same bird lays more than once in the season I can- 
not positively say, but I have little doubt that such is 
the case. It certainly is so if the first eggs are destroyed 
or taken away. The 7th of February is the earliest date 
on which the species was ever observed by my brother 
or myself in that neighbourhood, and the 1st September 
the latest. We have known the first egg to be laid 
on the 25rd of March, and have found several nests with 
egos (one with a single fresh eg¢) on the 8th of June; 
this was in 1851. When the birds first arrive in the 
district they are generally seen on the fallows, or on 
land from which turnips have recently been fed off. 
After a few days they betake themselves to the warrens, 
and remain there for the summer, frequenting the most 
barren spots. The nests are somewhat deep holes, 
apparently formed by the birds themselves, and having 
at the bottom a considerable number of small stones, 
almost enough to fill half the hole, and neatly arranged. 
On this pavement, whence they derive their ordinary 
appellation, the four eggs are laid, with their pointed 
ends invariably meeting in the centre of the nest.* The 
cock bird has a regular song, in which he indulges 
during flight at this season.” 
On this warren, where Mr. Newton tells me he has 
seen some two dozen nests in one day—not necessarily 
all occupied, or even recent, for owing to the peculiarly 
permanent materials forming their “ domestic hearths,” 
these last many months, perhaps even a couple of 
years—their numbers appear to have decreased but little 
of late years, its character being unchanged; but at 
* The nests being in reality deep cups in which the eggs are 
placed with their small ends downwards, Sir Thomas Browne 
was not so far wrong in stating, on the authority of the “ Eringo 
diggers,” “that they were set upright like eggs in salt,” 
