122 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
place of resort was the margin of that tidal basin at 
Holme, to which I have before alluded, which, though 
at flood tide presenting a wide sheet of water, has a 
swampy marsh at one end, covered with coarse grasses, 
glasswort (Salicornia herbacea), locally called samphire, 
and other marine vegetation. Here, when scattered 
amongst the rank herbage, and not seen at times till 
they rose, I obtained most of my specimens, and by a 
lucky right and left on the 8th of June, the last day of 
my visit, secured the four males and two females, whose 
diversity of colouring I have already described. 
Like many others of its class, should a sanderling 
happen to fall, “winged,” into the water, it swims lightly 
and fearlessly, and, recovering itself in an instant, makes 
at once for the shore. In the sea, also, it rides buoyantly 
on the little billows, and with the most perfect coolness 
allows itself to be washed ashore, making off at an 
almost incredible pace as soon as it gains a footing. It 
is further noticeable, in all such cases, that although the 
bird may have fallen from some height into the water 
the wounded wing, only, is saturated with wet; yet that 
the rest of the plumage should be impervious to the 
water must surely, in these birds, be owing simply to 
muscular contraction. 
HEMATOPUS OSTRALEGUS, Linneus. 
OYSTER-CATCHER. 
The Oyster-catcher or Sea-pie as it is locally termed, 
once abundant enough in the breeding season on the 
northern shores of this county, can now only be claimed 
as a resident through some few scattered pairs still linger- 
ing in one or two of the wildest and most retired of 
their former haunts. Mr. Dowell remarks that in 1848 
