264 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
below the reach of the highest tides, are sadly pillaged by the men and 
boys who travel along the beach, and very few of the clutches laid on the 
shingles below high-water mark are hatched off. Later in the spring, 
apparently taught by experience, many pairs of Ringed Plovers move 
inland to the marshes. These marshes, intersected by innumerable tidal 
creeks, extend over an area of many thousand acres, along the North 
Norfolk shore: they are composed of deep beds of homogeneous stiff clays, 
devoid of stones, and containing few fossils, what there are being shells of 
Mollusca now living in the adjoining seas. The surface of these alluvial 
mud-beds supports a vegetation composed largely of Statice limonium and 
Atriplex littoralis (locally called Crab-grass): in the months of July and 
August these marshes present a very pleasing appearance, for then the 
Statices are in full bloom, and their blossoms spread—for miles and 
miles—a shade of delicate lilac over the long low shore. In favoured 
localities amid these marshes, various species of birds find suitable 
breeding-places. Redshanks hide their beautiful eggs in tufts of grass; 
the Lapwing lays hers in the open; whilst the Common Tern, Sterna 
fluviatilis, and the Ringed Plover likewise nest there in considerable 
numbers. On the 2nd of June, this year, without any very careful search, 
we found two Redshank’s nests, with the full complement of eggs; a 
Lapwing’s nest, with four eggs; seven Common Terns, each with three 
eggs; and four nests of Ringed Plover, each containing four eggs, in an 
area not exceeding two acres in extent. These four nests of the Ringed 
Plover were placed in circular depressions scraped out of the soil, and in 
each case the eggs rested on a fairly substantial nest made up of the 
leaves and stems of Atriplex littoralis. Not a quarter of a mile off many 
Ringed Plovers were nesting on the shingle, and there not a trace of grass 
or plant was used in the construction of their nests, which were merely 
depressions scraped in the gravel, and, as usual when the eggs are 
incubated in such situations, fragments of shells were placed under them. 
Thus within a short distance we find the same species of bird adopting two 
very distinct methods of nest-making. On thoroughly dry and pervious 
shingle ridges the birds deposit their eggs on the surface. When the 
marsh is selected, the eggs are raised from the cold and damp mud by a 
substantial nest of dry plant stems. The Common Tern adopts a similar 
course on the sand-hills and shingle ; its eggs are laid in bare depressions, 
sometimes a stalk or two of marram grass being laid in or about the hole. 
On the marshes a fairly large nest is built, and in those I have examined 
the stems and dried last year’s blussoms of Statice limonium were chiefly 
used in their construction. Iam glad to say that I have not seen a better 
show of birds breeding on Wells marshes for several years than this 
season, and this is doubtless owing to the fact that the Lord of the Manor, 
the Earl of Leicester, has ordered egg-gathering to be discontinyed in the 
