88 OUR EARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



her plaintive note, which quickly brought her mate 

 to her side. Together they ran along a grass- 

 grown ridge commanding a good view of the where- 

 abouts of their eggs, flew to another ridge, ran 

 about for a while and then returned, occasion- 

 ally varying this behaviour by flyiog right over us, 

 and w r histling as if to tell us she knew we were 

 there. We waited for hours in the broiling sun, 

 which heated the vast plain of shingle until my 

 field-glasses became utterly useless on account of 

 the dazzling radiations. At last the bird retired 

 to her treasure, and jumping up we saw her run 

 a little way and then take wing and join her 

 mate on a little plot of short herbage some hundred 

 yards away. 



We soon had a sight of the beautiful little 

 eggs lying in. a slight hollow amongst the shingle, 

 with which they harmonised in the most astonish- 

 ing manner. 



The three pairs of birds I saw appeared to 

 be extremely local in their movements. I tried to 

 walk one of them off a limited piece of ground on 

 which they evidently had eggs, but in vain. They 

 ran along in front of me for some distance, then 

 flew a few yards, alighted again, and rising, circled 

 round to the place where I had originally dis- 

 turbed them, all the while uttering their soft, 

 plaintive whistle. 



The eggs of the Kentish Plover are easily dis- 

 tinguished by their pyriform shape and scratchy 

 markings from those of the Lesser Tern, breeding 

 upon the same ground, and there is not much 

 chance of even the tyro mistaking them for the 

 eggs of the Ringed Dottrel. 



