WADING BIRDS. 193 
cry was taken up by one and another as they passed, 
and had a peculiarly wild effect. 
The Redshank (Totanus calidris) is the next of our 
visitors, but at rare intervals. I have only known of 
three, all occurring in the winter. One was killed in a 
small boggy piece of ground bordering the stream on 
the outskirts of the village ; another, a young female, was 
shot in 1859, in a meadow on Carbrecks farm, while 
feeding. 
The Common Sandpiper (7. hypoleucos) occurs spar- 
ingly on our streams, but I never met with more than 
a pair atatime. <A low-lying meadow a short distance 
from my garden was frequently chosen by a pair as 
their summer residence, and their lively habits added 
a charm to the quiet stream on whose banks they fed. 
If left unmolested they would doubtless have bred there, 
but they generally, alas! fell victims to the mania for 
shooting everything strange. 
My claim to include the Greenshank (7. glottis) in 
my list rests on the occurrence of a single individual 
seen by my father many years ago on the same 
piece of swampy ground which I mentioned as having 
sheltered the redshank. It rose on his approach, and 
flew slowly away, and was not seen again. 
The same remark applies to a bird which is still more 
seldom seen—the Avocet (Recurvirostra avocetia). On 
the 24th of July, 1856, one was seen in a meadow on 
the banks of the stream at Edwinstowe by a boy, who 
of course did not know what the strange bird was. He 
managed in some way to steal upon it so closely as to 
kill it by a stroke of a stick. It proved to be a young 
bird, in good condition, but in immature plumage. It 
is not often that this bird comes inland; even when 
Oo 
