86 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
Beachamwell the different aspect of the soil of late years, 
has banished for ever these once numerous visitants. 
In that neighbourhood, as I am informed by the Rev. H. 
Dugmore, the greater part of the warren, about ten or 
twelve years ago, was broken up, and the remainder laid 
down for sheep walks, since which time (with the excep- 
tion of the first year after the alteration took place, when 
a few made their appearance), he has not seen a single 
ringed plover, where, twenty years ago, they might have 
been counted by hundreds. The stone-curlew and lap- 
wing, are still met with, but in much smaller numbers— 
“not one in twenty to what they used to be”—and since 
the warren was thus broken up, such migrants as the 
sea eagle, the rough-legged buzzard, and the peregrine, 
of frequent occurrence in former days, are now rarely seen. 
In like manner Brandon warren has been done away 
with for some years, but Mr. Newcome observed a few 
pairs in May, 1867, both on Lakenheath and Wangford 
warrens, in Suffolk, and they are still found, I believe, 
(certainly up to 1863) on Elveden in small numbers. 
I may here also state that Mr. Anthony Hamond, jun., 
showed me recently two eggs of this plover, taken, 
about twenty years ago, from a nest in Water-lane, in 
the Westacre district, close to Walton common, one 
of the few wet commons still existing in Norfolk. As 
far as I could learn but one pair of birds were seen 
at the time, and the nest was situated near a run of 
water, from whence this gravelly lane derives its name; 
nor have any birds of the kind been since observed, in 
that very exceptional locality. 
Sir Thomas Browne does not appear to have known 
this bird as an inland breeder, but under the name 
of “Ringlestones’”* describes it “as common about 
* Mr. Alfred Newton informs me that “Ringel” is at the 
present day a Norsk name for this bird. The term sea-dotterel, 
also, frequently but erroneously applied to this plover, is of 
