The Zoologist— October, 1871. 2807 



Ringed Plorer breeding at a distance from the Coast.— Obsemng in 

 the last number of the ' Zoologist' (S. S. 2770) an enquiry whether it is a 

 common occurrence for the ringed plover to breed at a distance from the 

 coast, and an editorial note that no instance is known to you, I write to 

 remind you that Mr. Scales found the ringed plover nesting on the warrens 

 at Beechamwell, near Swaffham, and on Thetford Warren, in Norfolk. 

 Mr. Hoy informed Mr. Yarrell that many breed on the sandy warrens of 

 Norfolk and Suffolk, at a considerable distance from the sea. Mr. Stevenson 

 says (' Birds of Norfolk,' ii. p. 86) that a few pairs were observed, in May, 

 1867, both on Lakenheath and Wangford Warrens, in Suffolk, and that 

 Mr. Antony Hamond, juu., recently showed him two eggs of the ringed 

 plover taken from a nest in Water Lane, in the Westacre district, close to 

 Walton Common, one of the few wet commons still existing in Norfolk. 

 The late Mr. St. John, in his 'Natural History and Sport in Moray' 

 (p. 206), observes that ringed plovers in the breeding-season are sometimes 

 found a few miles up the rivers, and Mr. A. E. Knox informed me some 

 time since that he had frequently seen ringed plovers in the breeding- 

 season on the gravelly banks of the Spey, many miles from the sea-coast. — 

 J. E. Harting. 



Night Heron breeding in Immature Plumage, &c.— I sent out one of 

 my collectors a few days ago to bring me some eggs of the night heron 

 {Nycticorax griseus), from a tree where they had been known to breed last 

 year, with instructions to shoot the birds as well. Had I known that other 

 Ardeidse had heronries on the same tree, of course I would never have 

 deputed any native on such an errand. He returned the next day with a 

 basketful of eggs belonging to Buphus coromaudus, on the point of hatching, 

 and a few specimens of Nycticorax, and swore that he had shot the birds off 

 the nest ! One of the night herons brought me, though fully eleven months 

 old, was still in the immature garb, and resembles the second figure in 

 Yarrell's work, with this exception, however, that it wants the spots on the 

 back. My shikaree persisted that the spotted example was a female, and 

 that those with occipital plumes and black on the head and back were the 

 male birds ! This is enough to show what little dependence can be placed 

 on the natives of this country for help in ornithological matters. The 

 immature bird, in which stage it has been described as the "spotted heron" 

 (Yarrell, vol. ii. p. 583), proved on dissection to be a male, and the testes 

 were enormously developed, sufficiently proving that it was breeding. 

 A few days later I visited the tree myself, and got several nests of 

 thoroughly-identified eggs ; but, though 1 shot a number of birds, I could 

 not get another in the spotted stage. — A. Anderson. 



Yellowshanlied Sandpiper near 9Iarazion. — The yellowshanked sandpiper 

 {Totanm flavipes) was added to the Fauna of Cornwall, by the capture, on 

 the 12th instant, of an adult male, by Mr. Edward Vingoe, from the margin 



