THE WADERS OF SOLWAT. 57 



and after that period they diminish rapidly, though seldom, if 

 ever, entirely absent till the northward flight takes place in 

 April or later. (Comparatively few are to be seen on the banks 

 in the spring migration, for they anive late and hurry on 

 quickly. 



I have seen as many as five hundred in one flock, but thirty to 

 forty is the more ordinary number. Some autumns they are 

 very abundant, the season of 1882 being a memorable one in 

 this respect. In that year they seemed to be actually the 

 prevailing species. Comparatively infrequent on the other 

 estuaries, they abound on that of the Nith. 



The soft oozy banks adjoining the green merse lands, and 

 quite away from the firm sand and shingle or gravel, are their 

 favourite haunts. Here their long upturned bills find suitable 

 spots in which to bore and prod. They seem to procure many 

 bivalve shell-fish in such places; at least I have regularly 

 found such pabulum in the stomachs of birds shot on spots of 

 this character. 



Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa belgica). 

 Although it is stated in the fourth edition of Tarrell, p. 490, 

 that " it is a tolerably regular visitant to the morasses of the 

 Solway," I have not found it so in my experience. Specimens 

 were shot on the Nith, a couple of miles below Dumfries, in 

 November, 1881 and 1883, respectively, since which no others 

 seem to have turned up, although the species has been seen at 

 this particular part of the river occasionally. 



The Curlew ( Kuvienius arqtiata). 

 What would our moors and mosses be like in spring and 

 summer without the vociferous whaups? One of the finest 

 charms of their loneliness is the ring of the wild voice of the 

 Curlew as its calls echo, and re-echo and reverberate from hill 

 to hill and from knowe to knowe till the very air itself seems 

 to be vibrating in unison ! For my part, I always look upon 

 the day, or rather the night, when the whaups fii-st come up in 

 a body to take possession of their inland quarters as the opening 

 of the season. It may happen as early as the 5th of February 

 or as late as the 14th of March, as it was in the years 189-3 and 



