18 
GEEAT PLOVEE. 
In Ireland one was procured in the county of Waterford, and 
one in the county of Wexford, which was shot near Growtown, 
by Travers Hawkshaw, Esq., of Hilburn House. 
The Thick-knee haunts wide open spaces, commons, warrens, 
heaths, sandy flats, such as chiefly border upon the sea coast, 
uncultivated wastes, and sheep-walks, seeming to prefer districts 
where the soil is poor, and in default of these, the larger 
fields, fallows, and turnip grounds. 
This fine bird I have repeatedly seen on the top of the barren 
hill between Lyme Regis and Charmouth, Dorsetshire. Many 
a ‘stalk,’ when a boy, have I had after him, but he always 
managed to out-general me by keeping his sentry-box in the 
middle of the open field, or resorting to that vantage-ground 
on the least symptom of danger. 
The Rev. R. P. Alington tells me that it used to be common 
near Swinhope, in Lincolnshire, as it was in other parts of 
that county, but that it has become much more rare from the 
enclosing of the country. A nest was taken in 1852, in Kingly 
Yale, near Chichester, Sussex, as I am informed by Mr. George 
Jackson, of that place. It is not uncommon in that county, 
as also in Hampshire, about Selborne; Kent, Essex, Suffolk, 
Worcestershire, and Cambridgeshire,—in the last-named only 
occasionally. The Rev. Dr. Thackeray obtained a young one 
bred near Cambridge. In some parts of Surrey they are not 
uncommon. 
One was obtained close to the town of Cambridge, in October, 
1853, as Thomas George Bonney, Esq., of St. John’s College, 
informs me. Several have been obtained in the winter months 
in the Land’s End district, in Cornwall, one in the beginning 
of February near Falmouth, and one at the Land’s End, in 
January, 1848; one near Penzance, about the 24th. of December, 
1844. In Leicestershire, James Harley; Esq., of Leicester, 
writes me word that it is a regular summer visitant, but only 
very locally distributed, namely, on the north-east side of the 
county, abutting on Lincolnshire. 
Birds of passage, they arrive here in March and April, or 
the beginning of May; and depart again usually by the end 
of September or October, in flocks of as many as forty or 
fifty, but some few continue longer. They repair to the same 
spot annually: they migrate by night. One was shot the first 
week in February, 1852, as Mr. F. W. Stears has informed 
me, at Roos, in Holderness; and in the same month, in 1807, 
one was killed in Devonshire, as recorded by Montagu; the 
