GREAT PLOVER. 467 



Mr. J. D. Salmon, then of Thetford, says of this species, 

 " that it is very numerously distributed over all our warrens 

 and fallow lands during the breeding-season, which com- 

 mences about the second week in April, the female deposit- 

 ing its pair of eggs upon the bare ground, without any 

 nest whatever ; it is generally supposed that the males 

 take no part in the labour of incubation ; this I suspect is 

 not the case : wishing to procure for a friend, a few 

 specimens in their breeding plumage, I employed a boy to 

 take them for me ; this he did by ensnaring them on the 

 nest, and the result was that all those he caught during the 

 day proved, upon dissection, to be males. They assemble 

 in flocks previous to their departure, which is usually by 

 the end of October ; but should the weather continue open, 

 a few will remain to a much later period ; I started one as 

 late as the 9th of December, in the autumn of 1834." 

 Montagu mentions an instance of this bird being killed in 

 Devonshire as early as February in the year 1807. 



Further north than Yorkshire I do not trace it. 



These birds are usually seen in unenclosed countries or 

 where the fields are large ; they frequent sheep-walks, 

 fallow lands, heaths, and warrens, and when trying to get 

 a shot at them, I may remark, that from the bare and 

 exposing nature of the ground, I have always found them 

 very difficult of approach. They breed on fallows ; the 

 eggs are pale clay brown, blotched, spotted, and streaked 

 with ash-blue and dark brown; two inches two lines in 

 length, by one inch seven lines in breadth ; and so closely 

 do these eggs, and also the chicks in their downy covering, 

 assimilate in colour with the soil and the stones around 

 them, that they are both very difficult to find. 



The large and prominent eye in this species indicates a 

 bird that moves and feeds by twilight or later. Their food 

 is worms, slugs, and insects ; they are believed also to kill 



H H 2 



