74 THE NATURALIST IN BERMUDA. 
October 18th, 1848. J. R. Place, master of the schooner 
“ Norman,” just arrived from Halifax, Nova Scotia, informs 
me that on his passage hence to that port, about the 12th 
of September, ultimo, in long. 63°30 W, and lat. 37., he fell 
in with “vast numbers” of plover, in flocks numbering 
from thirty to a thousand each, all flymg due south by 
compass; weather moderate at the time. He furthur 
states that he could hear numerous flocks passing over his 
vessel in the night of the above-mentioned day, that he 
does not think there was anything easterly in the flight of 
these birds, and that he expected to hear that Bermuda had 
been teeming with them. This flight, however, did not pass 
over or visit the Bermudas. 
September 5th, 1849. Mr. Samuel Nelmes, one of the 
oldest sea-going navigators of these Islands, told me to-day, 
as he cleared out his schooner for Prince Edward Island, 
that, when commanding the brigantine “Carib” twelve or 
thirteen years ago, on a voyage from London to the Ber- 
mudas, and sailing in the latitude of those Islands, in the 
month of September, with fair breezes and a continuation 
of remarkably fine weather, the vessel sailing four and five 
knots only, and the Bermudas distant between four and five | 
hundred miles, he fell in with endless flocks of plover, all 
flying in a south-east direction. 
On referring to the Custom House records, I found that 
this voyage was performed in the year 1833, the date of 
the master’s report at the Custom House, in Hamilton, 
being the 14th September. It is therefore evident that the 
vast flight of plover he alludes to must have crossed the 
latitude of the Bermudas on or about the 10th of Septem- 
ber, at the distance of upwards of a thousand miles from 
the nearest part of the American coast. 
