CHARADRIDZE. 32h 
homes of most of the various species that have 
hitherto claimed our attention, we have now to be- 
take ourselves to the ooze and mud, for which the 
greater part of our coast line is notorious,—to the 
soft and muddy banks of our rivers, streams and 
ponds,—to the swamps and bogs of the Brendon and 
other wild hills, and especially to the great turf- 
marshes which form so large a portion of a certain 
district of our county. The present Order is a 
much larger one in point of number of species than 
the last, including as many as seventy-three British 
species, out of which forty-two may be considered 
as belonging to Somersetshire. The Charadride or 
Plovers are the first family which I have to notice: 
of these eight species out of the fourteen British may 
be considered Somersetshire: some are very nume- 
rous, but mostly irregular and fitful in their appear- 
ance, depending very much on the state of the 
weather. 
GREAT Puover, Cidicnemus crepitans. ‘The 
Great Plover, Norfolk Plover, Stone Curlew, or 
Thickknee as it is also called, seems occasionally to 
have occurred in this county. There is one in the 
Museum at Taunton amongst the birds in the collec- 
tion formerly belonging to the late Mr. Beadon, of 
Otterhead, and there is an entry in his note-book 
saying it had been shot at Brown Down in the winter 
of 1828: this would appear to be rather an odd time 
