RINGED PLOVER AND GREATER RINGED PLOVER. 23 



is a somewhat harsh trr ; but its alarm-note is a very noisy though plaintive 

 too-it. In the pairing-season the call-note is repeated so rapidly that it 

 forms a trill, and becomes also more liquid in tone. 



In this country the breeding-season of the Ringed Plover commences 

 in April. Early in that month the large flocks, which have collected 

 and lived in company during the winter, disperse into smaller parties 

 and spread themselves over their breeding-grounds. At all times of the 

 year this bird is more or less sociable. Numbers breed in some districts 

 very close together ; and during the summer they may always be seen in 

 companies of half a dozen or more, according to their abundance in 

 the neighbourhood. The greater number of birds remain on the sandy 

 shores to rear their young ; but others have favourite nesting-places on 

 the shining strands of inland lochs and rivers, whither they repair in spring. 

 Sometimes the nest is made at a considerable distance from water. The 

 Ringed Plover makes little or no nest. It contents itself by scratching a 

 little hollow in the sand, less frequently in shingle, or even takes advantage 

 of a hole already formed, but occasionally it deposits its eggs on the bare 

 flat sand. The eggs are laid from the middle of April to the end of May ; 

 but they have been found as early as the last week in March and as 

 late as the beginning of August. Mr. Maurice C. H. Bird has written to 

 inform me that he has known young birds only a few days old on 

 Winterton Beach on the 3rd of August. The earliest eggs are laid, as a 

 rule, in the south of England, but in the north they are a little later. The 

 nests are generally not far from high-water mark, and are extremely 

 difficult to find. The moment danger threatens, the parents leave their 

 eggs, relying for their safety on their protective colour, which scarcely 

 differs from that of the sand on which they are placed. To the expe- . 

 rienced ornithologist the anxious cries of the parents often betray the 

 vicinity of the nest, which may be found after a long and patient search. 



The eggs are four in number, and do not vary much in colour. They 

 are very pale buff or stone-colour, spotted with blackish brown and 

 with underlying markings of inky grey. The spots are pretty evenly 

 distributed over the surface, but on many specimens are most numerous 

 on the large end, and vary in size from specks to that of a very 

 small pea, the average being about that of No. 10 shot. The eggs 

 are pyriform in shape, and vary in length from T55 to T3 inch, and in 

 breadth from T05 to *98 inch, the larger dimensions being those of 

 British examples. The eggs of the Ringed Plover are not easily confused 

 with those of any other British species, being larger and paler than either 

 those of the Little Ringed Plover or the Kentish Plover. If the first e^e-a 



DO 



are removed others will be laid, sometimes in the same nest; but there 

 appears to be no satisfactory evidence that the bird rears more than one 

 brood in the year. When the nest is menaced by danger the old birds 



