128 BRITISH BIRDS’ EGGS. 
Famiry CGE DICNEMIDA. 
GREAT PLOVER (or STONE CURLEW). 
(HDICNEMUS ScoLOPAX, Gmel. 
Pl. XIX., fig. 9. 
Geogr. disty.—Temperate and 8. Europe in suitable localities ; east- 
ward as far as India; resident in N. Africa: in Great Britain it is 
local and less common than it used to be; it arrives in April, and 
leaves again in October. 
Food.—Mollusca, worms, and insects in various stages. 
Nest.—A mere depression scratched in the earth. 
Position of nest.—In waste sandy flats upon the sea coast and other 
open desert localities. 
Number of eggs.—2-3; usually 2. 
Time of nidification.—V-VI; or even as late as September. 
Respecting the breeding-places of this species in Great 
Britain, Mr. Saunders writes :—‘‘ Upon the chalk downs of 
Dorsetshire it is to be found breeding regularly; also, 
subject to the hostile influences of enclosure and cultiva- 
tion, in Wiltshire ; Hampshire (visiting the Isle of Wight 
on passage and in winter); Sussex; Kent, especially on the 
hills above Romney Marsh; Bedfordshire and Hertford- 
shire, notably on the chalk hills about Tring; and so on, 
through Cambridgeshire, to Suffolk and Norfolk, where it 
finds the conditions more congenial than anywhere else in 
these islands. On either side of these main lines the 
Stone Curlew appears to be a straggler; but it is found 
breeding in small numbers in Rutland and Nottingham, 
and the late E. Blyth obtained its young in Worcestershire. 
It is still found in the Wolds of Lincolnshire, and across 
the Humber it continues to breed, although in decreasing 
numbers, in a few localities in the Hast Riding, but to 
West Yorkshire it is only a straggler; and in Lancashire, 
Cheshire, and Wales its occurrence is very rare, if not 
absolutely unknown.—(Yarrell’s Hist. Brit. Birds, 4th ed., 
vol. iii., pp. 226, 227.) 
Personally I have only met with the Stone Curlew in 
Hampshire, where I heard it uttering its plaintive cry 
towards dusk whilst flying over a dreary patch of moor- 
land. Asa rule, this bird only lays once in the year, but 
if the first clutch is taken it will lay a second time. The 
ege which I have figured is in the collection of Mr. H. 
Dresser, and, I believe, fairly represents the species. 
