116 BIRDS 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 his neighbourhood, when, after the 
creat flood in November, 1852, several thousand acres of 
the “Fen” district were inundated for more than six 
months. 
CALIDRIS ARENARIA (Linneus.) 
SANDERLING. 
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 eges 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. 
+ 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. 
