AXn yEIGHBOURHOOD. 19 



length of time in our neighbourhood, but severe 

 frosts generally send Golden Plovers in greater or less 

 numbers up our valley in December and January; many 

 more, however, are to be seen and heard passing over 

 high in air than ever alight within our limits ; these 

 high-flying flocks have now and then a curious habit 

 of plunging downwards on being fired at, and I have 

 occasionally " got in " a second barrel with eflect by 

 this method of attack. A solitary Golden Plover 

 may often be brought up mthin shot-range by a 

 tolerable imitation of the plaintive whistle which 

 is the most common note of these birds. A vast 



Grolden Plovers on th.e mud. 



number of these Plovers are often to be met with 

 during the late autumn and winter on the tidal 

 mud-flats of our harbours and estuaries at low water, 

 they generally keep to the most open meadow and 

 arable land at other times of the day, they seem to 

 feed principally by night, and are very restless in 

 foggy or wet weather. A great many Golden Plovers 

 were formerly taken in Whittlesea Wash and the 

 adjacent fen-lands by means of clap-nets, but I am 

 informed that of late years the Plovers have become 

 so comparatively scarce in that neighbourhood that 



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