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AN OBSERVATIONAL DIARY OF THE HABITS OF 

 THE GREAT PLOVER (CEDICNEMUS CREPI- 

 TANS) DURING SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. 



By Edmund Selous. 



The Great or Norfolk Plover being not yet exterminated in 

 East Anglia, I spent some time during last September and 

 October in observing its habits. 



A thick belt of bracken fringes on one side a barren area of 

 sand scantily clothed with lichen or moss, or with some very 

 close dry herbage, which (if not the lichen itself) is browsed on 

 by Rabbits. In other parts it is bounded by a tangle of very 

 long thin wiry grass, or by some stunted and sorry-looking 

 heather, clinging amidst sand and flints. Beyond, on one side, 

 is the river ; on the other a piece of open moorland, which the 

 bracken also fringes on one side, whilst the road skirts it on 

 another. I had seen the Plover on this sandy waste (which 

 I here call the amphitheatre or plateau), and thought the 

 bracken might give me the means of getting closer to them than 

 I had before been able to do. 



The following notes were made almost always on the spot, 

 sometimes whilst the actions noted were proceeding, usually just 

 after. They were copied out, and sometimes a little elaborated 

 or added to on my return home the same evening. If occasion- 

 ally I put down something after a longer interval of time, I had 

 always kept it quite fresh in my memory. 



September 1st, 1899. — Crept up through the bracken to edge 

 of open space between 5 and 6 p.m., and found myself close to a 

 number of the Great Plover. They, however, shortly took alarm 

 from the moving of the fronds, and flew farther off, but to no 

 great distance for the glasses. Some three or four birds 

 remained quite near. The birds that had flown off were joined 

 by others, and at last by a flock of ten. They may then have 

 amounted to some fifty in all, and stood stretched out in a long 



