BIRDS 359 



Peewits, but that is always a great district for Golden Plover, 

 perhaps the very best in the whole of Lakeland. In the last 

 months of the year Golden Plover often visit our salt marshes 

 in large and small flocks. Both in the fields near Maryport 

 and on Newton marsh I have crawled within shot of very big 

 companies, as well to closely study their varied and graceful 

 actions, as to listen leisurely to their plaintive whistle. They 

 are partial to feeding on open sands and mussel scars, and if a 

 winged bird be tethered down, one or two nice shots may be 

 secured from behind the big stones at Beckfoot. Yarrell does 

 not appear to mention the singular order in which Golden 

 Plover fly, sometimes passing high overhead in a long-extended 

 line, and on other occasions flying in a V formation. With the 

 last days of February many parties of Golden Plover usually 

 make their appearance in the fields in the neighbourhood of the 

 English Solway. These immigrants, most of which are begin- 

 ning to assume the black breast, only stay with us a few days 

 and depart in an easterly direction. 



GREY PLOVER. 



Squatarola helvetica (L. ). 



Dr. Heysham knew the Grey Plover as a Cumbrian bird. 

 T. 0. Heysham says, in an undated draught : ' This bird has 

 been killed in the month of September near Skinburness, so 

 that they occasionally at least visit the Firth both in spring 

 and autumn.' Dr. Gough did not include the species in his 

 Kendal list, but it stands in his private notes as ' taken at 

 Cark.' So far as I can judge from numerous inquiries of those 

 gentlemen who shoot regularly on Morecambe Bay, the Grey 

 Plover does not visit that portion of our coast in any consider- 

 able numbers ; nor is this surprising, for, though often plentiful 

 on the Solway, it is even there capricious in its choice of 

 feeding-grounds. Certainly we found a few Grey Plovers 

 frequenting the channel between Barrow and Walney Island in 

 October 1890, but only a few. Arthur Bolton, who shot some 

 of them, assured me that he had always regarded it as rather 

 scarce in that locality. It visits the Duddon, but is not 



