88 B1"RDS OF NORFOLK. 



districts, and banish altogether those species for whom 

 the former condition of things was an absolute necessity. 

 At the present time, in the long range of coast between 

 Yarmouth and Salthouse, I know of no regular nesting 

 place of this plover, although a few scattered pairs may 

 possibly be met with; but from their head station on 

 Salthouse beach to the shores of the Wash, they are 

 still found pretty numerously in summer, and more 

 particularly about Blakeney and Holme-point, near 

 Hunstanton. 



At Salthouse, though sadly decreased in numbers of 

 late years, they have bred from time immemorial in 

 company with the lesser terns (Sterna minuta) frequent- 

 ing the upper portion of that natural rampart of flints,* 

 which here constitutes the beach, and the sandy margins 

 of the broad backwater that divides it from the raised 

 sea-banks and marshes beyond. This preference for the 

 vicinity of brackish waters, immediately adjoining the 

 coast, is observable also at Blakeney, where they nest on 

 the " meals " and shingle, between the sea on the one 

 hand and the tidal channel on the other ; and at Holme, 

 where a wide basin between the sandhills (alternately 

 filled or emptied by the action of the tides), has attrac- 

 tions for them at all seasons. 



I have reason to believe that on the coast, as on the 

 warrens, the ringed plover nest much earlier than is 

 generally supposed. It is true I have never found their 

 eggs, myself, earlier than the first or second week in May, 

 but this is mainly attributable to the fact, that my sea- 

 side excursions have, from necessity, been postponed till 

 about that date, but the Salthouse beachmen, in whose 

 statements I have perfect confidence, assure me that in 

 some seasons they have found ringed plover's eggs by 

 the middle of March ; the ordinary time of laying being 



* See introduction to vol. I., p. xxxii. 



