GOLDEN PLOVER 227 
compact mass towards the ebbing tide. I have repeatedly 
seen flocks, which frequent the ooze-flats, detach them- 
selves into small parties as the tide rises and covers their 
feeding-grounds, and again congregate into immense flocks 
as the sands are laid bare. 
Flight.—On the wing the Golden Plover is remarkably 
swift. When a shot is fired into a flock, several of the 
birds will drop vertically as though struck, and then con- 
tinue their flight, turning and twisting with wonderful 
adroitness, at no great height from the ground. 
Food.—This bird seeks its food by. night as well as by 
day. Insects of different kinds, sand-hoppers, worms, slugs 
minute snails, and other shell- fish, together with vegetable 
matter, form the diet. I have found larve, 3 renee in 
length, present in the gizzard: grit and pebbles are fre- 
quently swallowed. 
Voice.—The clear and not unmusical whistle, syllabled 
clet-wée, clét -wé?, may now and then be heard at night 
over our great cities; the note in the breeding-season is 
described as tirr-pée yu (A. Chapman). 
Nest.—This Plover breeds on flat bogs as well as on 
elevated moor-lands, frequently on the summits of high 
mountains. The nest is a depression scraped in the 
ground, lined with a few blades of dry grass. 
The eggs, four in number, are of a rather light buff or 
stone-colour, sometimes of a rich reddish-buff, boldly marked 
with dark brown blotches and spots. Incubation begins 
about the end of April. 
The Golden Plover breeds freely in the northern counties 
of England, in Scotland, and in all four provinces of Ireland ; 
it nests in proportionately fewer numbers in Wales and 
in some of the southern counties of England, but in the 
eastern section it 1s mainly a bird of double passage. 
The art of decoying intruders from the nest and young 
is well developed in the Golden Plover. At the least sus- 
picion of danger, the female will leave her eggs, and running 
along the eround for a short distance, take flight in silence. 
Even when the intruder is a long way from “Ae nest, the 
male may be heard setting up his plaintive and pleading 
cry of alarm to distract attention from his mate while she 
is shpping from off her nest. When the young are hatched, 
the parents will flutter and tumble and assume such atti- 
tudes as would denote that they were suffering from a 
broken leg or wing. In this way they often coax an enemy 
