270 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



AN OBSERVATIONAL DIARY OF THE HABITS OF 

 THE GREAT PLOVER (CEDICNEMUS CREPI- 

 TANS) DURING SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER. 



By Edmund Selous. 



(Continued from p. 185.) 



September 19th, — Arrived between 11.30 a.m. and 12 o'clock. 

 The place seemed deserted. I could discover no birds after 

 searching it well with the glasses. On rising to go, however, after 

 remaining about half an hour, I put up one bird quite near on the 

 edge of the bracken, and, later, three or four others from right 

 amongst the bracken where it was a little thin and open. At 

 about 4 p.m. a flight of some thirty or forty Great Plovers flew 

 down on the scant (I think, burnt) heather bounding one portion 

 of the amphitheatre, there having been none there before. Soon 

 after I left. 



September 20th. — Rose early, and, after some hours spent 

 elsewhere, walked across the moor to the road that runs through 

 it. Some little time after reaching it — it being now perhaps 

 seven or between seven and eight — a large flock of Great Plovers 

 flew over the moorland, and cpme down amongst the heather. 

 They were followed by other flocks, all flying in a long, thin, 

 irregular line. This made them less difficult to count, and I 

 counted upwards of seventy in the largest flock. There must 

 have been, I should say, near two hundred in all. A broad bank 

 of earth runs near here, through both heather and bracken, 

 clothed either with the one or the other, and behind the heathery 

 part of this, and near to where a broad gap divides the two, the 

 birds went down. Crawling up to this bank, and looking over it, 

 I had a near and plain view of them. They were just standing 

 and sitting about in the heather, and did not appear occupied 

 with anything in particular. Whilst watching them another 

 small party flew up, and, my attention being drawn by a note 



