GREAT PLOVER. 381 



CEdicneml's. Generic C/ianic/ers.— Beak stout, strong, and straight, a little 

 depressed at the base ; ridge of the upper mandible elevated, under mandible 

 with an angle at the symphysis. Nostrils placed in the middle of the beak, 

 extending longitudinally as far forward as the horny portion, open in front, 

 pervious. Legs long, slender ; three toes only, directed forwards, united by a 

 membrane as far as the second articulation. Wings moderate ; second quill- 

 feather the longest in the wing. Tail graduated. 



The Great Plover, Norfolk Plover, or Stone 

 Curlew, names referring to qualities or habits in this spe- 

 cies, is a summer visiter to this country, arriving here in 

 April, and leaving again at the end of September or in 

 October, and like other summer visiters coming to us from 

 the south. It is accordingly much more numerous in the 

 southern and south-eastern counties of England than far to 

 the west, or to the north, but, possessing great powers of 

 flight, the range of this bird is not so limited here as has 

 been supposed, and is otherwise, as will be shown, of great 

 geographical extent. 



Mr. Thompson tells me that it is an extremely rare 

 visitant to Ireland. According to Mr. Couch, Dr. Edward 

 Moore, and Mr. Gale, this bird has been killed three or four 

 times in Cornwall, and is found, but is not plentiful, in De- 

 vonshire and Dorsetshire. Peter Ryland, Esq. includes it 

 in his Catalogue of the Birds of Lancashire ; and Mr. Blyth 

 mentions having received the young from Worcestershire. 

 In Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge- 

 shire, and Norfolk, it is common. The late Mr. J. D. Hoy, 

 in a letter sent to me, says, there is no part of England 

 where the (Ech'cjiemus crepitans so abounds as upon the 

 sandy plains of Norfolk ; great numbers have been caught 

 in most seasons by the Subscription Heron Hawks at Did- 

 lington Hall, Norfolk ; they have been known to take refuge 

 in a rabbit-burrow when pursued by the Hawk. 



Mr. J. D. Salmon, then of Thetford, says of this species, 

 " that it is very numerously distributed over all our warrens 



