92 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



him out to aid in the search. I expected him to dream most of the time, 

 which he did ; but I laughingly remarked, on the way out, that he would 

 doubtless be the person to show us how to find Plovers' eggs. Of course he 

 did it : he walked straight up to some on the side of a mound of shingle on 

 the lower ground, and thereby settled the vexed question, so far as that pair 

 was concerned. Having thus broken the spell, we found another nest the 

 following year, also on the lower ground, and also on the side of a mound 

 of stones, the theory that they lay just above high-water mark being rather 

 exploded, so far as these nests were concerned. From this second nest 

 we purposed only taking one egg; but, just as we were coming away, we 

 noticed that we were being watched through glasses by two men lying upon 

 the beach, and guessing that they would have the other eggs if we didn't, 

 we ourselves annexed the clutch. We were quite right, for no sooner had 

 we departed than they issued forth with a dog and went straight for the 

 spot, where we soon saw the dog sniffing zealously at the empty nest. 



I believe myself, though I have never proved it, that these Ringed 

 Plovers breed on the shingle above as well. We have there found the 

 nests of Lapwings, and also of Redshanks, which are here very easy to 

 discover. The amount of grass suitable for making their arbour is so 

 limited that it serves to attract you to the spot, but the birds themselves are 

 as wily as ever. If you don't put them off the eggs they never fly near 

 them while you are there, though they do sometimes utter a distant cry 

 when you are getting quite close to the spot. 



Further on towards Pevensey the Common Tern still breeds, but in 

 diminishing numbers, while I have been shown undoubted eggs of the 

 Dunlin, which bred on the Crumbles two years in succession. The most 

 interesting of the smalF birds that nest there is the Yellow Wagtail. The 

 pairs seem to have increased in numbers since I first noticed them, and 

 as the nest is hard to find they may well continue to do so. The Blue- 

 headed Wagtail has bred as near as Winchelsea, and I once thought I 

 saw one on the Crumbles in the spring. I could not get near enough to 

 identify it for certain, but the birds occur unquestionably in the autumn, the 

 majority in immature plumage. Concerning this plumage, the books state 

 that it is almost indistinguishable from that of the Common Yellow Wagtail, 

 and no bird is accepted as a Blue-headed unless it has a perfectly white 

 eye-stripe. As I once pointed out in the ' Zoologist,' I still believe that the 

 immature Blue-headed has a darker, more olive-green back than the 

 commoner bird. It is this feature that has always attracted my attention 

 when I have shot them, and I would suggest that the young Blue-headed 



