152 Poachers and Poaching. 



whistle, its short uneasy flights, and its restless 

 paddlings up and down the ooze. Watch the 

 sea-pie from behind some boulder and see how 

 admirably adapted is its bill to its wants. 

 Flattened sideways and as hard as stone, no 

 bivalve can resist it. It breeds among the weed 

 and driftwood just above high-water mark, and 

 lays three or four eggs of a cream-coloured 

 ground, blotched and spotted with varying shades 

 of rich dark brown. 



The little ringed plover is an exceedingly rare 

 British bird, and is like our own ringed plover 

 in miniature. 



The grey plover and the turnstone are spring 

 and autumn visitants, having their breeding 

 haunts in the far north, though it is probable 

 that the first has bred a few times within the 

 British Islands. Specimens have been seen in 

 the London markets attired in summer plumage, 

 and the birds themselves have been observed 

 about the Fame Islands in June. The grey 

 plover is fairly numerous after its advent in 

 September, keeping in small flocks and sticking 

 closely to the coast lines. It is larger than the 

 green and golden plovers, is sometimes seen in 

 company with them, and like them assumes a 

 black breast in the breeding season. It occurs 

 less frequently in the bags of the puntsman than 

 the birds just named ; it is rarely obtained far 

 inland. Like its congeners it forms a delicate 



