120 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Of tlie two females killed on the 8tli, tlie upper parts 

 show more black than red, varied with grey margins to 

 many of the feathers. In one the throat is white, 

 covered with dusky spots, with hardly a trace of red 

 appearing; whilst in the other the red is a little more 

 distributed. The female of June 2nd has the upper 

 parts as in the other two, except that the tail coverts 

 are still light grey, but the neck and throat are as red 

 as in any females I have seen, thus showing how 

 strangely variable these birds are in the assumption of 

 their breeding plumage. The females are slightly larger 

 than the males, but even this is subject to exceptions, 

 and cannot, therefore, be relied upon altogether as a 

 sexual distinction ; and the absence of the hind toe 

 renders it impossible to confound this species with the 

 dunlin or other small waders, in any stage of plumage. 



Their stomachs I found extremely stout and muscular, 

 and usually filled with the remains of small shrimps and 

 sandhoppers, small white worms, little fragments of 

 seaweed and minute beetles, mixed with a considerable 

 .amount of coarse sand. They were all in high condition, 

 and, being covered with perfect layers of fat, required 

 much care in skinning during the hot weather. I 

 should here mention, also, that even in the females 

 killed on the 8th of June, the ovaries contained no eggs 

 larger than a No. 4 shot, with a considerable cluster of 

 smaller ones. 



As its name implies, the sanderling is essentially a 

 bird of the sea-shore, and I know no locality better 

 suited to its habits and necessities than that where I 

 first met with it, on our coast, between Holme and 

 Hunstanton. On these flat shores an immense tract 

 of sand is laid bare at low water, abounding in little 

 pools and streamlets, and teeming with those minute 

 forms of Mollusca, Crustacea, &c., which form the chief 

 food of the smaller waders. Here, with the mussel-scalps 



