284 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



district from month to month by birds with a very different 



history. 



The same is true of snipe ; they nest in many parts of the 

 country, but the numbers of winter visitors are far greater 

 than those of the nesting birds. The jack snipe is a winter 

 visitor pure and simple ; it breeds in Lapland and the Arctic 

 tundras, and departs again in March. Golden plover appear 



on heaths and wide ploughed fields in hard weather, flocking 

 down from the Baltic and Arctic basins where they chiefly 

 breed. Some of them may possibly come from nesting-places 

 on the mountains and high moors of the northern counties 

 and Scotland ; but probably most of our own birds go south- 

 ward early, in the vanguard of the movement. On the sea- 

 shore and in oozy estuaries, as early as August, flocks of 

 dunlin are once more veering over the creeks ami channels, 

 showing their gleaming bellies as they turn. Curlew come 

 down from their high-lying inland nesting-grounds at the 



