120 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
Of the two females killed on the 8th, the 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 ege's 
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 
