AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 15 



November 25, 1882." I wrote at once to Mr. Elliot 

 expressing doubts, and asking for details, but received 

 no reply, and although I know my correspondent 

 has a very fair acquaintance with British birds, 

 I cannot avoid a suspicion that he may have been 

 mistaken in this instance, as the Kentish Plover is a 

 vernal migrant to this country, generally leaving our 

 coasts in August or at the beginning of September, 

 and so far as I know is very seldom met with at any 

 considerable distance from salt water. In England 

 I have only twice met with the Kentish Plover, in 

 both instances on the south coast of Devon ; it is 

 recorded as breeding, or having formerly bred, in the 

 neighbourhood of Dungeness in some numbers, and 

 has, according to Yarrell, been met with on the 

 coasts of Yorkshire, Lincoln, Norfolk, Cornwall, and 

 not uncommonly in the Channel Islands. My own 

 acquaintance with this bird is chiefly confined to 

 Spain ; I found it common on the shores of the 

 Bay of Cadiz in February, and later in the year 

 observed it in small parties on both banks of the 

 Guadalquivir, as far up as to within a few miles 

 below Seville. 



These birds are extraordinarily tame and fearless 

 of man, and will run about and feed unconcernedly 

 within a few feet of a boatful of people, and if 

 a flock is fired at, many of the survivors will very 

 shortly return to the spot from which they were 

 started by the shot. 



In general habits this species resembles the Ringed 

 Plover, but appears to me to be more exclusively 

 addicted to shingle and hard sand than that bird, 

 and I have seldom found it upon the tidal muds. 

 The eggs average three in number and may be 



