214 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
leading and directing, and, as it were, encouraging 
and pressing them forward, and thus they continued 
to progress slowly but surely, till they were not only 
out of sight (for the man kept on his separate course), 
but till the cry of the old birds died on his ear.” From 
the line they were taking and the direction whence 
they had come, Mr. Rising has no doubt that the old 
birds were changing their feeding-grounds from the 
Pleasure-boat hill to a place called Rush-hill, a distance 
of some five hundred or six hundred yards, and were 
thus watching over and leading their young. 
At the close of the breeding-season our native red- 
shanks again leave the broads and more inland haunts 
for the sea coast, frequenting more particularly the 
salt-marshes and brackish margins of our tidal streams. 
At Blakeney, as Mr. Dowell remarks, “they assemble 
in small flocks about the middle of September, and are 
particularly shy and noisy;” and from their thus dis- 
turbing all other wild fowl, are objects of much aversion 
to the sportsman and professional gunner.* These 
form, however, but a small portion of the flocks, which 
assemble in these localities during the autumn months, 
consisting of migratory families from the north, and 
which leave us again after a time for more southern 
quarters, although a few may still be met with even in 
the sharpest weather. Again during the spring migra- 
tion this species appears on Breydon and other parts 
of the coast, in company with knots, godwits, and 
ringed plover, staying only for a few days, and then 
passing on to their northern breeding grounds. This 
* Tt is this habit of the redshank, and also of the turnstone 
(as Mr. A. Newton informs me), that has given both birds in many 
parts of Scandinavia the local name of “'Tolk” or interpreter, the 
origin of the specific appellation interpres given by Linneus to 
the bird last mentioned (“ Linn. Gil. och Goth]. Resa,” p. 217). 
