AMONGST THE HEATHER AND GORSE. 35 



is a late summer migrant reaching Devonshire at 

 the beginning of May, but farther north in York- 

 shire we seldom hear of it before the middle of 

 the month. Its two elongated, polished, and 

 beautifully lined, veined, and marbled eggs are 

 deposited upon the bare ground beneath a furze 

 or other bush. Like most late migrants, the Goat- 

 sucker leaves us somewhat early in the autumn. 

 In former days these Devonshire furze-clad war- 

 rens were apparently a favourite resort of the 

 .Stone Curlew during winter, but the reclamation 

 of much waste ground, and the making of railways, 

 have proved disastrous to them. We occasionally 

 hear the once familiar cry of this species, seem- 

 ingly uttered by birds on migration at night, but 

 the Stone Curlew is decidedly rare now. The 

 species was known to Montagu evidently as a 

 straggler in the South Hams district ; and there is 

 no record of its ever having bred within the county, 

 although, we believe, it regularly does so in Dorset. 

 It seems to us extremely questionable whether the 

 odd birds that appear in our area during winter 

 are normal migrants at all. Rather should we 

 feel disposed to class them as lost migrants that 

 have drifted into a district where the exceptional 



