206 STONE CURLEW, DOTTEREL, &c. [PART II. 
last twenty years, the Stone Curlew, a bird of many 
aliases, but recognisable as Bewick’s Charadrius 
cedicnemus, never failed to visit us during the 
summer, confining himself principally to the 
higher ground, where the plough had crept in 
upon the central ridge of down which bisects 
the Island. In common, however, with several 
other species, this bird has almost ceased to visit 
us, and until the year 1857, when three or four 
were seen and two killed, several years had 
elapsed since I had heard of the appearance of 
one. It is long since I myself have heard their 
wild whistle in the uplands. Of the Dotterel (Cha- 
radrius morinellus) I have, to the best of my belief, 
never met with above a single specimen in the 
Island. The Ring Dotterel (Charadrius hiaticula— 
Vectic® “ Bull-bird’’) occurs in considerable num- 
bers, consorting with its friend the “Ox-bird” 
(Tringa variabilis) along the muddy flats and 
harbours on the western part of the north coast. 
I believe I may also undertake to say positively 
that I have in the same locality killed, when a boy, 
several specimens of the Grey Plover (Squaterola 
cinerea, Yarrell). I then imagined them to have 
been Golden Plover (Charadrius pluvialis), but 
have since been satisfied that I was mistaken. I 
