Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/496

462 note of similar tone, several times repeated, but with well-marked intervals sufficiently long to take away its wailing character. I have not remarked this before.

September 26th.—Missed my way over moor, and did not get to bank till close on 4. With one doubtful exception, did not put up any Plovers during this wandering, though, as I got far beyond the bank and can only have passed it, as far as I can see, through the broad gap, I must have gone either right over or very near the place where they assemble. At 4.45 the first Great Plover flew over the bank (flying silently), and, a minute or two afterwards, I began to hear the cry. Another followed shortly afterwards. It was the very earliest twilight of the morning, the moon and stars quite bright, except in the eastern sky, where the latter were fading into dawn.

At 4.55 two more flew over. Then came in the following order and number:—1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, 5, 2, 1, 2. One of the last two uttered a short single note of different tone to the usual one. It had a scrappiness in it, and was without the wailing character. One other bird—flying a little before these, the other way, and which, I think, was a Great Plover—uttered a short single note, repeated, which was again different, nor was it the "tir-whi-whi-whi-whi-whi." Otherwise, all flew silently; but the ground-note was now frequent. I had noted a small flock flying (and, I think, going down) on the other side of the bank, and the cries which I had before heard I attribute to these or other birds on the ground.

It is 5.10, and some five minutes since the last bird flew by. Now come 1, 1, 1, the last making the full characteristic wail, but without the wailing trills and twitters which, I believe, are only uttered on the ground. Getting lighter and lighter, and birds beginning to avoid me as they fly over the bank, but one of last three went quite close by me, without seeming to notice me. Then come eleven flying together in a flock, quite silently. Then two more. Time 5.17. Forty-nine birds, therefore, as a minimum, have flown up to this resort between 4.45 and 5.17 a.m. I cannot at all say how many may have come invisibly from an opposite direction, or how many flying over me I may not have observed (though I do not think any).

5.30.—Is now clear daylight, stars invisible, though moon