Mr. J. BlackwalPs Ornithological Notes. ^5 



his * History of British Birds/ and the cause of this occurrence 

 is conjectured to be the desire to rub itself in the dust, like the 

 GallirKB. That such may be the case I will not dispute, but I 

 have never been able to detect the bird in the fact, though I have 

 watched it on such occasions with the closest attention, and I 

 have known it, in numerous instances, alight on a damp road 

 or a compact gravel-walk, where there was no dust, and after 

 having been repeatedly disturbed return to it again. 



It is probable that the circumstance of nestling goatsuckers 

 having been mistaken for young cuckoos by unskilful ornitho- 

 logists may have contributed in a considerable degree to promote 

 the erroneous opinion that the cuckoo sometimes takes charge 

 of its own offspring ; the two species, however, may readily be 

 distinguished from each other, even when recently disengaged 

 from the egg, by the structure of the beak and feet. 



With reference to its ordinary call, usually consisting of two 

 prolonged tremulous notes, the latter of which is the lower, the 

 Welsh have named this species troellwr or the spinner. 



The King Dove, Columha palumbus. 



In seasons when acorns are unusally abundant, the oak woods 

 in the valley of the Conway are resorted to by large flocks of 

 ring doves, comprising a very much greater number of indivi- 

 duals than have been bred in the neighbourhood, evidently at- 

 tracted to the locality by the plentiful supply of food to be ob- 

 tained in it. Whence they come, and by what means they 

 acquire a knowledge of the fact that induces them to visit the 

 district, I am at a loss to conjecture, as they do not assemble 

 gradually, but arrive in large bodies almost simultaneously. 



The autumn of 1844 was a remarkably favourable season for 

 the production of acorns, and ring doves were proportionately 

 numerous. In the winter, the birds procured them by turning 

 over the fallen leaves under which they lay hid ; and some idea 

 may be formed of the immense consumption of nutriment of this 

 kind by the doves, from the circumstance that on opening the 

 craw of a specimen brought to me on the 26th of January 1845, 

 it was found to contain forty-five acorns of various sizes. 



The Common Sandpiper, Totanus hypoleucos. 



Sandpipers of several species, more especially the common 

 one, are prevented from increasing so rapidly as they otherwise 

 would in the county of Caernarvonshire, where numerous streams 

 and lakes constitute favourite resorts of those birds, by the 

 shepherds' dogs, which habitually prowl about their haunts in 

 quest of their nests, and devour indiscriminately both eggs and 

 young. 



