188 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



sionally appears, though only as a winter visitor. As 

 such I am able to include it in my list, a single 

 individual having been killed at South Clifton on the 

 21st December, 1866. It is singular that birds of this 

 species should occasionally wander so far from their 

 haunts on the plains of Southern Russia, and at such 

 a season. Rarely more than a solitary bird is seen at a 

 time, and it receives but a poor welcome. 



Amongst the birds becoming scarcer every year is the 

 Thick-knee ((Edicnemus crepitans), or, as it is also 

 called, the great plover or stone curlew. Though scarce 

 enoug^ to be an object of interest, it is yet by no means 

 a rare species, and regularly frequents many parts of 

 our bare sandy forest land which are suitable to its 

 habits. It used to breed on a large rabbit warren at 

 Oxton, but the greater part of this has now been in- 

 closed, and the thick-knee has disappeared with the 

 solitude. I have known it also occur on Walesby Breck, 

 and on the sheepwalks in the neighbourhood of Inkersal 

 it may frequently be seen and heard. I have noted 

 their arrival as early as the 17th of March. Its habit 

 of resting in the daytime and squatting under cover of 

 stones or bushes renders it difficult to detect in -places 

 which it is known to visit. It feeds and migrates in the 

 night ; every summer I have heard its well-known loud 

 shrill cry, as it flew over my head in the darkness, most 

 frequently during the season of its arrival. 



The Golden Plover (Charadrius pluvialis) occurs in 

 varying numbers, chiefly in early spring and summer. 

 On the banks of the Trent it assembles in large flocks 

 in winter, but in our own immediate neighbourhood I 

 never met with it at that season, with the exception of 

 two that were killed on the farm of Leyfields on the 



