The Bird Life of the Breck District 5 
their surroundings, and are practically invisible 
except to the practised eye. 
On the Breck these birds seem to have 
acquired a special nesting habit. A hollow 
is made in the sandy soil and neatly lined 
with small stones carefully selected about the 
size of peas; the nests when untenanted are 
conspicuous enough, but with the addition 
of the eggs they are as invisible as those 
on the beach; this habit of lmimmeg their 
nests with stones has earned for them the 
local name of ‘“ Stone-hatch,’ by which 
NEST OF RINGED PLOVER. 
they are known all through the district. 
The class of birds which inhabit a country 
or district is largely dependent on the 
character of the country itself. The Breck 
is eminently suitable to the habits of ground- 
nesting birds; not such, however, as ducks 
and rails, which require swampy ground with 
long grass and herbage in which their 
somewhat conspicuous eggs may be hidden, 
but for such as the ringed plover and others, 
the remarkable resemblance of whose eggs 
to a stone-strewn soil gives them a better 
protection than concealment, the bare hills 
and fallows of the Breck forming an ideal 
nesting ground. Best known and most widely 
distributed of such birds is the Lapwing or 
Pee-wit. Its breeding grounds are spread all 
over the country, and its plaimtive cry of 
es eo a. 
YOUNG RINGED PLOVERS. 
“Yee-wit |’ may be 
heard in early 
spring on many 
a heath or other 
open space, such as 
commons, downs, 
fallow fields and 
meadows, the more 
bare and_ shelter- 
less the better to 
ensure this ever 
watchful bird from 
RINGED PLOVER ON NEST. bemg approached 
