206 RINGED PLOVER 
places among the sea-side rocks, and the island offers no 
suitable inland resorts. 
All the year round, except at nesting time, a few 
inhabit the sands of Douglas Bay. Here they are fairly 
familiar, and on a very wet Sunday in January 1886 I 
even saw a few running on the concrete surface of the 
Harris promenade, on which gravel had been thrown by a 
high tide from the shore a short distance below. The 
Ringed Plover is common on Castletown Bay, as also on 
the Bay-ny-Carrickey, and a very few pairs probably breed 
on the shingle at least of the former, for I have observed birds 
which seemed by their action to be nesting, and I years 
ago saw eggs said to have been got at this part of the 
island, while in 1903 I was shown two nests near Poolvash 
amid the rough shingle surrounding Pool Richie. These 
latter nests were neatly lined with minute fragments of 
white shells and a few small stones, which amid the brown 
and grey stones characteristic of the place made the site 
very much more conspicuous than it would otherwise have 
been. In 1904 Ringed Plovers also nested near Poolvash, 
and between Derby-haven and Cass-ny-hawin, and a nest 
was found on the little beach at Scarlett." At Poolvash in 
this year there were at least four nests, and they were care- 
fully watched by the residents who found them, but all, as 
Mr. J. Maddrell tells us, were washed away by a high tide; 
some of the birds nested again, however. In 1902 a pair 
was evidently nesting at the ‘White Beaches’ at Dalby. 
On the northern coast, as above indicated, it is common, 
and breeds on all the more retired portions of the far- 
extending shingle, and on the sandy warren of the Ayre. 
In Laxey Bay I have noted chance stragglers only. 
The eggs are laid, as a rule, not earlier than the third 
1 In 1905 at least two pairs were nesting at Scarlett among the quarry rubbish 
which covers the base of a little disused pier. 
