THE BIRDS OF DUNGENESS. 219 



movement of its wings. This time I kept it in sight until it 

 settled about two hundred yards distant, and ran away amongst 

 some broom bushes. This was at 11 a.m. At 3 p.m. I passed 

 the nest at some distance on my way home, and saw the bird 

 rise, apparently right off its egg, and fly away as before. On the 

 9th May I again looked at the nest. As I came up the bird 

 ran off its egg, and crouched down as before. On this occasion, 

 it being a dull cloudy day with a very bad light, the protective 

 powers of the colouring of the bird were strikingly exemplified, 

 for as soon as the bird crouched it seemed to disappear from 

 sight. It allowed me to come within ten yards of it, at which dis- 

 tance I was still unable to distinguish it until it moved, although 

 I was looking at the actual spot from which it flew. As I had 

 good reason to suppose that the nest had been found by some 

 boys, and was not likely to be left any longer undisturbed, I took 

 the single egg. It is possible that there is some truth in the 

 general idea amongst the men on the beach, that if a Stone 

 Curlew has its first clutch of eggs taken, its second clutch will 

 consist only of one egg. This egg was already showing decided 

 signs of incubation, and it is probable that this bird would have 

 laid its second egg at a shorter interval than six days if it had 

 been going to lay two eggs. The hollow of the nest was now 

 much more trodden down than on the first day I saw it, and 

 pebbles had been scratched into it and trodden into the earth, 

 making a smooth paving of stones over the whole of the de- 

 pression, which had also some small twigs of dry broom lying in 

 it. The Stone Curlew seems rather to favour the landward side 

 of the beach where grass and pebbles intermingle, or, if they are 

 seen more to the centre of the beach, it is where there are strong 

 patches of broom and gorse growing on the shingle. 



Redshanks (Totanus calidris) were fairly numerous, and Lap- 

 wings (Vanellus vulgaris) and Ringed Plovers (JSgialitis hiaticola) 

 were both very numerous. The latter are well distributed all 

 over the beach country, aud are quite as numerous on the shingle 

 near Rye as at Dungeness. I spent much time in observing both 

 the Lapwing and Ringed Plover, and began to consider myself, 

 towards the end of my visit, quite an expert in watching them on 

 to their eggs. Their behaviour when they have eggs is somewhat 

 similar. We may take one instance as an example : I started 



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