SANDEELING. 117 



Yarmouth, Mr. Frere tells me they arrive like the 

 turnstones by the end of August or beginning of 

 September, but are then less numerous than in spring ; 

 and are not seen in that neighbourhood during the 

 winter months, although, on the shores of the Wash, 

 (possessing more attractions for this species), I have 

 often known specimens killed, in their delicate grey 

 plumage, in December and January. On that portion 

 of the coast, in September, 1863, more particularly 

 in the vicinity of Hunstanton, Mr. Do well found them 

 frequenting the beach, in flocks of from one or two 

 hundred to five hundred together, thousands of them, in 

 fact, being there congregated like dunlins, on Breydon, 

 during hard weather; and to make quite sure of the 

 species, he killed several specimens at different times. 

 Whether this was, or was not, an exceptional visita- 

 tion as to numbers,* I am not prepared to say, but 

 I have never heard of any similar instance in this 

 county ; and at Blakeney Mr. Dowell has seen them 

 only in small companies of from five to twenty or 

 thirty, or scattered singly along shore. In this locality 

 he has also remarked that " they do not come far 

 up the harbour, nor are they seen on the mud- 

 flats, or joined with the miscellaneous assemblage of 

 waders one so often sees mixed together in winter." 

 By the 20th of July, also, in 1851, he observed several 

 of these birds in Blakeney harbour, which had even 

 then assumed their winter dress. Stragglers are but 

 rarely met with inland, but Mr. F. Norgate tells 

 me he once knew a sanderling killed on some ice at 

 Sparham, near Norwich, probably driven out of its 

 course by heavy gales at the time. Single birds are 



* It is stated by Meyer, in his " British Birds," that in Holland 

 the flocks of sanderlings not unfrequently amount to " many 

 hundred individuals." 



