48 AN EAST COAST NATURALIST 



The adventures attendant on a "stranger's" 

 capture are sometimes interesting. A Caspian 

 Plover (JEgialitis asiatica) was knocked over on the 

 North Denes, and its murderer left it at a house, 

 where the mistress threw it on the top of the clock, 

 to be out of the way of the cat. It was taken 

 down, dusty enough, and shortly after identified, 

 and has since been permanently lodged in Norwich 

 Museum. 



An old punt gunner, recently deceased, used to 

 be exceedingly painstaking in seeking the Kentish 

 Plover (^Egialitis cantiana\ locally known as the 

 " Alexandrine " Plover. He would closely scan, 

 in the spring migration, every little group of small 

 waders, in order to detect this species, whose mode 

 of progression reminded him, as he expressed it, " of 

 a mouse a-runninV He was the only man I knew 

 who could distinguish it by this from its cousin 

 the Ringed Plover. It is impossible to distinguish 

 it in the autumn from the young of the commoner 

 bird, owing to its similarity of markings at that 

 period, at least when on the move beside some 

 Breydon "run." It is easy, of course, to identify 

 the bird when in the hand. 



Stevenson relates an interesting incident where 



