EP]DSHANK 411 



July 15 last (1866), on the same marsli where this large 

 flock appeared." 



A specimen in the Canterbury Musemu was obtained 

 at Thanet, July, 1886, by Mr. W. Oxenden Hammond. 



EEDSHANK. 



Totanus calidris (Linnaeus). 8.N., i., p. 252 

 (1766). 



Tooke. 



The Redshank is more or less a resident in Kent, but 

 the numbers diminish during the more severe winters, 

 returning in the spring. These birds baunt nearly all 

 the large swampy, rush-covered pastures in the extensive 

 marsbes on the coast of Kent, breeding and associating 

 with the Lapwing. 



Mr. W. H. Power, writing in 1865, aptly describes the 

 habits of the Redshank in the breeding season : "A 

 number of these birds breed annually on a large piece 

 of marsh called " Rainham Saltings " ; this consists of 

 about one hundred acres of irreclaimable marsh-land, 

 intersected in every direction by creeks and dykes ; it 

 is traversed by means of a " stray- way," a path that 

 doubles and turns about in every direction to avoid the 

 large creeks, giving to a person following it the appear- 

 ance of a man demented — at one minute leading straight 

 out from land, the next apparently walking back again ; 

 now turning to the right hand, now to the left, occasion- 

 ally disappearing altogether from view in a dyke. During 

 spring tides the greater part of the marsh is submerged, 

 the higher hillocks only remaining uncovered. 



