Sse es CL LLU! 
Birds. 9161 
four eggs of the oystercatcher, which were placed in a slight hollow 
scooped in the sand, and without any appearance of a nest. So closely 
did the eggs resemble the stones which surrounded them that it was 
difficult to see them at any distance. While stooping down to pick 
up the eggs, the note of a curlew attracted my attention, and turning 
round I was just in time to see one of these birds crossing the water 
and heading for Cumberland. It would be on the mountain-side no 
doubt that this bird had its nest, and not upon the sandy isle of 
Walney, where it would only resort for food, and find plenty of 
mollusks and sand-eels. A second curlew soon after appeared and 
followed the direction of the first. These were the only two which 
I observed. 
In a little bay, as it were, of sand, between two sand-hills, and well 
sheltered from the wind, I found four eggs of the ringed plover. As in 
the case of the oystercatcher, there was no nest, the eggs being placed, 
with the small ends together, in a hollow scooped in the sand: this 
I attributed to situation and want of materials, for I believe it is usual 
with this species to make a nest of small pebbles. I have found many 
- nests of this bird on the Sussex coast, and observed in every case, 
without exception, that they were concavely paved with very small 
pebbles, which, being placed with their flat sides uppermost, looked 
like little bits of tessellated pavement. 
It was only in the case of the gulls and terns that we actually 
disturbed the birds from their nests. The oystercatchers and ringed 
plovers we never found near their eggs; they had probably taken the 
alarm quicker, and gone away before we perceived them. 
I looked in vain for turnstones and sanderlings, although I had 
found the latter a day or two before, in pairs, on the coast at Warton, 
and shot three of them. No sandpipers of any sort could we find; in 
fact, Charadrius hiaticula was the only small wader we saw on the 
island: this bird appeared tolerably common, and we afterwards found 
several more of their nests; although they had paired they seemed to 
congregate at feeding time, for we saw several little ocks of them on 
the sands when the tide was out. 
I was very anxious to ascertain whether the lesser tern was breeding 
on the island. I had seen five or six of the birds, and after a long 
search I was fortunate enough to find three nests, the first containing 
four and the second and third three eggs each. These nests—if nests 
they can be called, being merely slight hollows in the sand—were not 
placed close together, as in the case of the Sandwich tern, but were at 
a considerable distance apart. The eggs, which were all very similar, 
VOL, XXII. 2Q 
