116 BIEDS OF NORFOLK. 



fleshy sheath or fold of skin " at the base of the upper 

 mandible, described by Mr, Gould, which shrivels up 

 and is hardly perceptible after death ; but may not this 

 singular appendage, the object of which is uncertain, be 

 intended as a shield to protect the feathers of the fore- 

 head against the sharp edges of the shells and other 

 objects, turned over by the beaks of these birds in their 

 search for food? The turnstone is rarely met with far 

 inland,* even at the period of its migratory movements, 

 but Mr. Lubbock states that it has been observed on a 

 small island on Hickling broad ; and, as I am informed 

 by Mr. Newcome, of Feltwell, on the 4th of May, 1853, 

 he procured one specimen, which appeared with other 

 strange visitants in liis neighbourhood, when, after the 

 great flood in November, 1852, several thousand acres of 

 the "Fen" district were inundated for more than six 

 months. 



CALIDRIS ARENARIA (Liunfeus.) 

 SANDEELING. 



That a species so abundant and so widely distributed 

 as the Sanderling should only very recently have been 

 traced to its breeding haunts,t and that authentic 

 specimens of its eggs should still remain desiderata in 

 nearly all cabinets, is no less strange than true. At 



* Mr. Harting, in his " Birds of Middlesex," states that on one 

 occasion in August, he met with a single bird of this species, so far 

 inland as the Kingsbury reservoir. 



t Mr. Alfred Newton informs me that the sanderling has been 

 found breeding by one, at least, of the explorers employed by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, although the particulars have not yet 

 reached him. 



