216 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



ago, but golf-links, with their accompaniment of numerous sharp- 

 eyed caddie-boys, do not make them a very desirable breeding- 

 ground for birds at the present day. 



On the east side of the mouth of the Rother there are some 

 small stretches of shingle, and on the west side there are some 

 larger ones, but in neither case approaching in any way the 

 extent of the beach at Dungeness ; and, owing to the proximity 

 of Rye and Winchelsea, they are not nearly such an interesting 

 hunting-ground for the ornithologist as the large beach surround- 

 ing Dungeness Point. It may be as well to say that the physical 

 difficulty of walking for a day over this loose shingle is a consider- 

 able tax upon one's powers, and that it is the best plan to make 

 use of the wooden " back-stays " used in the locality, by means 

 of which one is able after a little practice to acquire a sliding 

 movement over the surface of the beach, and to attain a greater 

 speed at a less cost to one's shoe-leather, as well as one's muscles, 

 than one would by attempting to walk in the ordinary way. 



It is the large expanse of pebbly beach near Dungeness 

 Lighthouse which forms the stronghold of the Kentish Plover 

 (Mgialitis cantiana), and the Stone Curlew (CEdicnemus scolopax). 

 Neither of these two birds is to be seen at the present day, on 

 the smaller patches of beach on either side of the mouth of the 

 Rother near Rye. The colonies of the Common Tern (Sterna 

 Jiuviatilis), and the Little Tern (S. minuta), are also to be found 

 only on the Dungeness Beach ; for, although I often noticed 

 individual birds of both these species feeding along the river 

 and in the ditches in the vicinity of Rye, as far as I could make 

 out they did not take up permanent quarters qxi any of the 

 stretches of shingle there. The Terns had hardly begun to lay 

 in any numbers before I left. The earliest date on which I heard 

 of the Common Tern's eggs being found was May 16th, and I 

 saw some myself on the 18th May, and on that date I also saw 

 some Lesser Tern's eggs, but in neither case were there more 

 than one or two eggs in a nest. I suppose there is a possibility 

 of a few Arctic Terns (S. macrura) breeding on the beach. I 

 watched a pair of them for some time one afternoon fishing in 

 the outer bight of a kettle-net. They came so close to me that 

 I was plainly able to distinguish the grey colouring of the breast 

 and flanks. 



