In the Neighbourhood oj Salisbury. 237 



killed one (with a Reeve), in nearly perfect summer plumage, on 

 August 11th, 1879, in the harbour. The only time I ever came 

 across them personally was on the North Curry Moor, near Taunton. 

 The moor had been flooded all the summer, the hay actually rotting 

 in the swath ; and having been told that there were all kinds of 

 birds on the moor, from the Hooper to the Dunlin, I sallied, out 

 one evening to try my luck. I started, however, too late, and the 

 miasma and stench from the decaying vegetable matter was so great, 

 that I tied a muffler round my mouth, and returned. The next 

 morning, however, I sallied forth again ; and after walking some 

 distance, and seeing nothing, my eye at last alighted on a large 

 flock of common Plover, which — from want of some better object of 

 attraction — I determined to stalk, I soon got knee-deep in the 

 water, not knowing the mode of irrigation in those moors, and just 

 as I was thinking of returning, the effort necessary not seeming worth 

 the cost, my eye rested on a brown bird amongst the Plovers, and my 

 energies, at once returned. They were very tame, and let me ap- 

 proach them in the open ; and as they rose, keeping my eye well on 

 the brown bird, I let fly, and not only knocked him over, but also 

 a second bird of the same species, which I had not previously noticed, 

 while immediately after I detected a third on a tussock of grass, 

 which was peering above the water, which I also secured. They 

 were the young birds of the year, and so totally unlike the full-robed 

 male that at first I had no notion what they were. 



Tringa Canutus. " The Knot." This is one of the birds, like the 

 Bar-tailed Godwit and others, whose summer plumage so entirely 

 difi^ers from the winter dress that you would scarcely recognize them 

 as being of the same species, the winter plumage being of a uniform 

 grey tint, while that of the summer is reddish-brown. They are 

 occasionally to be met with at Christchurch and Poole. On May 

 18th, 18SU, Hart observed a small cluster of these birds in the 

 harbour, in full summer dress ; and he tells me he has more than 

 once shot them with the eggs fully developed, and the yolk quite 

 formed, so that they must have been within a few days of laying; 

 and yet they are never supposed to breed in any more southerly 

 district than the Arctic regions. In the recent voyage of the Alert 



VOL. XXI. — NO. LXn. B 



