92 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDIEEY. 
him out to aid in the search. I expected him to dream most of the time, 
which he did; but I laughingly remarked, on the way out, that he would 
doubtless be the person to show us how to find Plovers’ eggs. Of course he 
did it; he walked straight up to some on the side of a mound of shingle on 
the lower ground, and thereby settled the vexed question, so far as that pair 
was concerned. Having thus broken the spell, we found another nest the 
following year, also on the lower ground, and also on the side of a mound 
of stones, the theory that they lay just above high-water mark being rather 
exploded, so far as these nests were concerned. From this second nest 
we purposed only taking one egg; but, just as we were coming away, we 
noticed that we were being watched through glasses by two men lying upon 
the beach, and guessing that they would have the other eggs if we didn’t, 
we ourselves annexed the clutch. We were quite right, for no sooner had 
we departed than they issued forth with a deg and went straight for the 
spot, where we soon saw the dog sniffing zealously at the empty nest. 
I believe myself, though I have never proved it, that these Ringed 
Plovers breed on the shingle above as well. We have there found the 
nests of Lapwings, and also of Redshanks, which are here very easy to 
discover. ‘The amount of grass suitable for making their arbour is so 
limited that it serves to attract you to the spot, but the birds themselves are 
as wily as ever. If you don’t put them off the eggs they never fly near 
them while you are there, though they do sometimes utter a distant cry 
when you are getting quite close to the spot. 
Further on towards Pevensey the Common Tern still breeds, but in 
diminishing numbers, while I have been shown undoubted eggs of the 
Dunlin, which bred on the Crumbles two years in succession. The most 
interesting of the small birds that nest there is the Yellow Wagtail. The 
pairs seem to have increased in numbers since I first noticed them, and 
as the nest is hard to find they may well continue to do so. The Blue- 
headed Wagtail has bred as near as Winchelsea, and I once thought I 
saw one on the Crumbles in the spring. I could not get near enough to 
identify it for certain, but the birds occur unquestionably in the autumn, the 
majority in immature plumage. Concerning this plumage, the books state 
that it is almost indistinguishable from that of the Common Yellow Wagtail, 
and no bird is accepted as a Blue-headed unless it has a perfectly white 
eye-stripe. As I once pointed out in the ‘ Zoologist,’ I still believe that the 
immature Blue-headed has a darker, more olive-green back than the 
commoner bird. It is this feature that has always attracted my attention 
when I have shot them, and I would suggest that the young Blue-headed 
