472 SCOLOPACID^. 



annelids, worms, crustaceans, and small mollusks. A 

 writer in the first volume of ' The Naturalist ' says of this 

 bird : — " When running along the sands, the Redshank has 

 the same kind of dipping motion for which some of the 

 smaller Sandpipers are so remarkable. I was very much 

 struck with the curious manner in which they dart their 

 bills into the sand nearly its whole length, by jumping up, 

 and thus giving it a sort of impetus, if I may use the 

 word, by the weight of their bodies pressing it downwards." 

 Colonel Irby has described (Ibis, 18(51, p. 239) a flock of 

 thirty or forty feeding in an oblique line in a shallow pool 

 with their heads half under water, moving them from right to 

 left with great rapidity, and making an audible noise. The 

 Redshank will dive when wounded ; and it has been seen to 

 swim to shallower water on the other side of a creek rather 

 than rise and fly across.* Mr. Gatcombe informs the Editor 

 that he saw a flock of fifteen or sixteen enter a very shallow 

 bay, and being deceived by the clearness of the water, they 

 alighted quite out of their depth, and were obliged to swim 

 until they found bottom, when they commenced wading and 

 feeding as usual. He also narrates (Zool. 1881, p. 52) an 

 instance of a Redshank which came on board ship on nearing 

 Ireland, and, being fed and unmolested, ran about the deck 

 quite tame, until land was sighted. Like its congeners, it 

 sometimes perches on trees and rails, and Mr. Stevenson 

 says that he has often seen the male bird in spring uttering 

 his peculiar love-song while running along a gate, pirouetting 

 and bowing like an amorous pigeon. Its flight is quick but 

 somewhat wavering, and on the extended wing the broad 

 white band is very conspicuous. 



The Redshank is frequently mentioned in the L 'Estrange 

 accounts, and in the Northumberland Household-book its 

 price is set down at three halfpence a-piece ; Sir Thomas 

 Browne also speaks of it as " of common food but no dainty 

 dish," and at the present day it is but little esteemed. 



* In this species the webs between the toes are more developed than in its 

 allies, and, like almost every other species of the group, it has been placed in a 

 separate genus — in this case, Oamhetta. 



