Id 



ing into the appendix to Captain fare's book, I was right, as it 

 was not until the 30th July these young birds were obtained ; 

 but I also must add, that I consider Captain Fielden wrong when 

 he says the Knots had acquired their autumnal grey plumage by 

 August 25th, unless he means the young birds' first plumage, as 

 we have the old birds sometimes returned to the Northumberland 

 coast by the middle of August, which have still their faded red 

 plumage, and have not cast a single feather. The grey birds he 

 met with in August were I think without doubt the young birds 

 of the year in the very same state I have frequently shot them 

 towards the end of August on our own coast. I was almost sure 

 Knots had not laid eggs so early as June 4th ; I have had them 

 killed on the south-east coast till the beginning of that month 

 on their way to breed. 



It seems distance within reasonable bounds is nothing to some 

 kinds of birds. Knots, and some other kinds, leave here only 

 in the end of May, to breed in the Arctic regions, and by the 

 middle of August the young have flown here, the old birds hav- 

 ing bred and reared young capable of flying the distance iu the 

 short space of ten or eleven weeks. 



The six birds mentioned by Captain Fielden, as seen by Dr. 

 Coppinger on the 28th July, and of which an old male only was 

 procured, might possibly be an early family, the four young and 

 two parents, but it seems strange they should have been so wild 

 if such was the case. This species when young and in small 

 flocks, and apparently unaccompanied by old birds, is often tame 

 and easily approached, but at other times I have seen them, even 

 on their first arrival late in August and early in September, when 

 in large flocks so wild, that they would not let you approach with- 

 in half a mile of them. 



On the 6th September, 1844, I got a young Knot which had 

 flown against Skinburnos Lighthouse, which was of wood stand- 

 ing in the sea; the beak was broken in the middle as if done 

 \\i(\\ a pair of pincers : and one young bird I shot on the 10th 

 September, in the same year, had at that early time commenced 

 to moult to its winter plumage, tlu- hack and hiva>t having im- 



