RINGED PLOVER. 91 



(Tringa variabilis) , and even during the intense frost, 

 which lasted for several days in January, 1862, I ob- 

 served several ringed plover on Breydon, when the half 

 starved dunlins were being slaughtered by hundreds. 



About the middle of February, in mild seasons, but 

 more ordinarily at the beginning of March, these birds 

 again make their appearance on Breydon in large 

 flocks, though at that time, as Mr. Frere states, they 

 are always extremely shy ; and it is just at this 

 early period of the spring that their melodious whistle 

 is once more heard on the warrens, and they are found 

 " taking to" the beach by the Salthouse gunners. Occa- 

 sionally, also, their " overland route" is marked at that 

 period by the appearance of stragglers on the banks of 

 our rivers, far from their usual haunts, as on the 23rd 

 of March, 1862, when a single bird was shot in a meadow, 

 at Heigham, near Norwich. Some weeks later, how- 

 ever, usually about the first or second week in May, 

 a second flight make their appearance on Breydon, 

 arriving at the same time with the knots, godwits, and 

 grey plover, which are then hurrying northwards to 

 their distant breeding grounds, and that a portion of 

 these, never very numerous, should remain on our shores, 

 attracted by the presence of their own kindred, is not 

 only, I think, a plausible theory, but one which would 

 account for the late period at which their eggs may be 

 met with, quite apart from any casualties or even second 

 broods. 



has remarked that in such quantities they keep entirely separate 

 from the dunlins or any other species. He has also noticed that 

 " ringed plover are often seen in localities where the beach is not 

 sufficiently muddy to attract stints, and that when the tide is falling 

 both the ringed plover and sanderlings begin to feed at an earlier 

 period of the ebb than the stints, and remain nearer the shingle, 

 generally not going down so close to the ebbing waves as the 

 stints do." 



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