82 
CHARADRlIDiE. 
THE GEEAT PLOYEE. 
Norfolk Plover. 
(Eclicnemiis crepitans, Temm.* 
Charadrius CBdicnenms, Linn. 
Is known only as an extremely rare visitant. 
The Great Plover is one of those species whose geographical dis- 
tribution is very interesting. It is a regular summer visitant to 
England^ but common only in the eastern and south-eastern 
counties, inclusive of Hampshire. Thence westward and north- 
ward it becomes rare, and has not been noticed farther than 
Yorkshire in the latter direction, t Consequently, w^e should 
expect that very few would visit Ireland, and that these would 
appear in the more southern rather than in the opposite portion 
of the island. Such is the fact ; the few that have yet been 
met with, having occurred from Dublin southward. 
Dr. J. D. Marshall, in the Magazine of Natural History (vol. ii. 
p. 395), recorded a specimen, which was very much emaciated, 
as having been shot at Clontarf, near Dublin, on the 27th Jan. 
1829. The bird came under that gentlemaids inspection just 
after being killed. A very fine one (now preserved in the museum 
of the Natural History Society of Dublin) was shot at Browns- 
town, iiearTramore, county of Waterford, about the 1st of March, 
1840. It is stated, in the '"Eauna of Cork,^'’ p. II, that 
Eichard D. Parker, Esq. (of Simday^s Yfell, Cork) met with 
two of these ^ large solitary ploveP on the wild mountains of 
Iveragh, county of Kerry, in August 1842. He had full oppor- 
tunity of observing them, and remarked that they seemed fond 
* In Smith’s History of Cork the following note appears : — “ The stone curlew 
{(Edicnemus ) . — Its feathers and feet resemble those of a bustard, and its cry is some- 
thing like that of a green plover : we have it on our shores.” In Tighe’s 
History of the County of Kilkenny, it is remarked, that “ the Charadrius osdicnerrms 
frequents the lower part of Waterford harboiu’ ; this bird, sometimes called the Nor- 
folk plover, and sometimes stone curlew, is rather scarce,” (p. 156.) The bird referred 
to in these extracts, can hardly be considered the (E. crepitans. 
t Yarrell, Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 437. 
