360 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



apparently known on the Eavenglass; nor can I answer for 

 more than two specimens killed on the coast near Whitehaven. 

 But east of Maryport it is an occasional spring and a constant 

 autumnal visitant. Cooper obtained a full-dressed bird on the 

 Solway in spring — that alluded to, no doubt, by the younger 

 Heysham, and others have since occurred. Mr. R. Mann 

 observed a party of six Grey Plovers on the coast at Allonby, 

 May 7, 1886. Mr. W. Nicol never met with the Grey Plover 

 in nuptial dress in the spring of the year until 1889, when he 

 saw a few black-breasted birds in May ; he had frequently seen 

 a few black-breasted examples in autumn. Of fifteen birds which 

 he shot on September 14, 1887, eight were young and seven 

 were adults. Two of the adults were in such handsome dress 

 that when Mr. Seebohm saw them in the collection of Mackenzie, 

 he at once remarked that they must be summer -killed specimens. 

 Mr. Nicol has never been able to send me a summer-dressed bird, 

 but he kindly forwarded two adult males, which had begun to 

 assume black feathers on the chin and breast; shot February 7, 

 1890. These were male birds by dissection. Some birds pass 

 the summer in most years on the Solway, but these rarely 

 assume the black breast during their sojourn with us, and they 

 are generally wild and unapproachable. The four full-dressed 

 birds which Nicol saw in May 1889 belonged to a flock of more 

 than thirty plain-breasted Grey Plover. On the 20th of Sept. 

 that year he saw two black-breasted birds in a flock of young 

 ones. The greater number of our Grey Plover arrive in 

 September on the more open portions of our estuaries, chiefly 

 that of the Wampool, feed singly and in small parties on the 

 sands, the mussel scars, and the bottoms of the largest creeks, 

 and generally fly in long circuits, not proceeding hurriedly from 

 one favourite spot to another, but flighting round with plaintive 

 cry. The number of those that winter with us is seldom con- 

 siderable. In January 1890 a flock of a hundred birds could 

 generally be found on the Waver, but this is rather exceptional. 

 On the coast these Plovers feed on small bivalve shells, together 

 with a little green algse. When met with inland these birds are 

 usually on passage, though sometimes one or two Grey Plover 

 voluntarily associate with Golden Plover in the open fields. 



