226 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
having been cleared, and the mud thrown out on the 
sides,” these birds were remarked in parties of five or 
six. The same author describes them, most accurately, 
as being always fat but having a “fulsome muddy smell,” 
and their note, he says, is “ probably the loudest of any 
of our fen birds ” considering its size. This clear shrill 
whistle may be heard distinctly when the bird is passing 
over at a great height, and I have occasionally distin- 
guished it on dark autumnal nights, not blended with 
the cries of other birds, but apparently uttered by some 
straggler, bewildered by the lights of the city and 
calling loudly in its flight. Mr. Harting, who gives 
a full and most interesting account of this sandpiper 
from his own observations (“Birds of Middlesex’), 
describes its food as consisting of “ insects, chiefly small 
beetles, spiders, small red worms, and wood-lice,” to 
which I may add small fresh water-snails, found in 
the stomach of one killed at Langley in the month of 
December.* 
TOTANUS GLAREOLA (Linnezus). 
WOOD-SANDPIPER. 
This species, as compared with the green sandpiper, 
is a rare visitant to our coast, appearing only occa- 
sionally, and at uncertain intervals, on its migratory 
* Since the above was in type, Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., has 
kindly communicated the following note on this species :—‘‘ Mr. 
Alfred Roberts, of the Museum at Scarborough, has had the green 
sandpiper (T'. ochropus) several times from the neighbourhood of 
Hunmanby, in all cases shot in June. The keeper there says they 
breed in old crows’ nests; he has seen them come off from the 
nests.” 
