THE RINGED PLOVER. 2O$ 



(vi.) THE NEST. 

 (Plates VIII. to XIV.) 



Charles Dixon, in his work on " Birds' Nests," published in 

 1902, says : "The Ring Plovers, for example, can by no stretch 

 of imagination be regarded as nest builders. They deposit their 

 eggs on the bare sands and shingles, often with not even a 

 semblance of a hollow to contain them," p. 43. Mr. R. Bowdler 

 Sharpe says : " Nest, none as a rule, being merely a hollow 

 scooped in the sand, though sometimes the bird takes advantage 

 of a natural depression." Against these libels on a charming 

 and loveable little bird we do most emphatically protest. We 

 probably have seen quite as many ring plovers' nests as these two 

 gentlemen, and the above statements bear little or no likeness to 

 the facts ascertained through our own observations. Mr. Henry 

 Seebohm, generally so accurate in his observations, says : " The 

 Ring Plovers make little or no nest." The question as to how 

 much nest a Ring Plover will or will not make is determined by 

 the personal temperament of the bird, coupled with a consider- 

 ation of the situation in which it has decided to nest. According 

 to our experience, the pairs nesting at Studland on the fine soft 

 sand merely scrape a little hollow or take advantage of a natural 

 depression, and, after ornamenting it or partially lining it with 

 broken shells, bits of marram grass, or dead seaweed, according 

 to the taste of the bird, deposit their eggs in this. The ornamen- 

 tation, if it renders the nest conspicuous, is removed as soon as 

 an egg is laid. On the beaches and islands of Poole Harbour 

 the process is a little more complicated. First there is much 

 inspection of the beach, and many little depressions are scraped 

 out by the birds, to be forsaken, apparently quite whimsically, for 

 another site. The little female waders, like the female of a 

 higher vertebrate inhabiting the Palaearctic region, seem to be 

 exceedingly difficult to please in the matter of a matrimonial 

 home. The nett result of much energy expended in making 

 " scrapes" is that the final scrape is made probably within a few 

 yards of where the nest was made last year. Having finished a 



