466 CHARADRIIDjE. 



particularly frequents bays and flats along the coast where 

 the sea at its ebb retires to a distance, leaving extensive 

 surfaces of sand or shingle. These birds also frequent the 

 sides of large rivers, and are not unfrequently found about 

 the margin of inland lakes and large ponds. As a species 

 it is numerous, and its habits are lively and interesting. It 

 is recorded that Mr. Scales found them breeding on the 

 warrens at Beechamwell and Elston, near Thetford in 

 Norfolk ; and the late Mr. Hoy sent me word, also, that 

 many breed on the sandy warrens of Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 at a considerable distance from the sea. They pair in 

 May ; but making no nest, deposit their four eggs in 

 any accidental depression on a bank of sand, broken shells 

 or shingles above high-water mark. The eggs are one 

 inch five lines long, by one inch and half a line in breadth, 

 of a pale buff or cream-colour, spotted and streaked with 

 ash blue and black. The parent birds are greatly attached 

 to their young, and practise various devices to draw off any 

 intruder from their charge, while from the great similarity in 

 colour to the surrounding materials, either the eggs or the 

 young are very difficult to find. They feed on worms, 

 insects, and, when at the edge of the sea, on the various 

 species of the thinner-skinned Crustacea, as shrimps, sand- 

 hoppers, &c., with which almost every little salt-water 

 pool abounds. The note of this bird is a shrill whistle. 



The Ringed Plover is even more numerous on our shores 

 in winter than it is in summer, probably from the number 

 that come to this country from high northern latitudes, 

 which they visit during the breeding-season. Thus M. 

 Nilsson says they are only seen in Sweden, and on the 

 shores of the Baltic from March to October. Mr. Hewit- 

 son saw them in Norway in summer. Linnaeus found them 

 in several parts of Lapland during his tour, and as far 



