88 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
districts, and banish altogether those species for whom 
the former condition of things was an absolute necessity. 
At the present time, in the long range of coast between 
Yarmouth and Salthouse, I know of no regular nesting 
place of this plover, although a few scattered pairs may 
possibly be met with; but from their head station on 
Salthouse beach to the shores of the Wash, they are 
still found pretty numerously in summer, and more 
particularly about Blakeney and Holme-point, near 
Hunstanton. 
At Salthouse, though sadly decreased in numbers of 
late years, they have bred from time immemorial in 
company with the lesser terns (Sterna minuta) frequent- 
ing the upper portion of that natural rampart of flints,* 
which here constitutes the beach, and the sandy margins 
of the broad backwater that divides it from the raised 
sea-banks and marshes beyond. This preference for the 
vicinity of brackish waters, immediately adjoiming the 
coast, is observable also at Blakeney, where they nest on 
the “meals” and shingle, between the sea on the one 
hand and the tidal channel on the other; and at Holme, 
where a wide basin between the sandhills (alternately 
filled or emptied by the action of the tides), has attrac- 
tions for them at all seasons. 
I have reason to believe that on the coast, as on the 
warrens, the ringed plover nest much earlier than is 
generally supposed. It is true I have never found their 
egos, myself, earlier than the first or second week in May, 
but this is mainly attributable to the fact, that my sea- 
side excursions have, from necessity, been postponed till 
about that date, but the Salthouse beachmen, in whose 
statements I have perfect confidence, assure me that in 
some seasons they have found ringed plover’s eggs by 
the middle of March; the ordinary time of laying being 
* See introduction to vol. 1, p. xxxil. 
