FOUND IN NORFOLK. 23 



bignesse of a Thrush coloured & paned* Hke an hawke 

 maruellously sublet to the vertigo & and are sometimes 

 taken in those fitts. 



Upupa or Hoopebird'*' so named from its note a 

 gallant marked bird wch I have often seen & tis not 

 hard to shoote them. 



Ringlestones"" a small [bird crossed out] white & black 

 bird like a wagtayle & seemes to bee some kind of mota- 

 cilla marina comon about yarmouth sands. they lay 

 their egges in the sand & shingle about June and as the 

 eryngo diggers tell mee not sett them flat butt upright 

 likes [sic] egges in [a crossed out] salt. 



The Arcuata or curlewe frequent about the sea 

 coast. 



[Fo/. 1 7. J There is also an handsome tall bird 

 Remarkably eyed and with a bill not aboue 2 inches long 



* That is marked with a barred or checkered pattern. 



^ The Hoopoe would seem from this note to have been of more 

 frequent occurrence than in the present day, see also in his answer to 

 "Certain Queries" (Tract iv., Wilkin iv., p. 183), in which he says of 

 this bird, " though it be not seen every day, yet we often meet with it in 

 this country." 



*" The Ring Plover is evidently the bird here referred to, but I have 

 never known the name of Ringlestone applied to this species in Norfolk, 

 nor have I met with it elsewhere. The Eringo is now no longer an article 

 of commerce, and its diggers are extinct, but not their tradition as to the 

 position in which the eggs of this bird are said to be placed — a " vulgar 

 error " which does not accord with the writer's experience. When the full 

 complement of four eggs is laid, they are arranged with their pointed ends 

 towards the centre of the nest, which is a slight hollow in the soil. The 

 concavity of the nest therefore, as well as the disproportionate size of the 

 larger end, gives the eggs somewhat the appearance of being placed in 

 the position referred to, but the small end of the egg is always visible. 

 Sir Thomas Browne does not seem to have been aware of the remarkable 

 fact of this essentially marine bird habitually nesting on the sandy warrens 

 about Thetford in the south-west of Norfolk, far from the sea, which it 

 still does, though in reduced numbers, and is there known as the Stone- 

 hatch, from its habit of paving its nest with small stones. 



D 



