214 BIRDS OP NORFOLK, 



leading and directing, and, as it were, encouraging 

 and pressing them forward, and thus they continued 

 to progress slowly but surely, till they were not only 

 out of sight (for the man kept on his separate course), 

 but till the cry of the old birds died on his ear." From 

 the line they were taking and the direction whence 

 they had come, Mr. Kising has no doubt that the old 

 birds were changing their feeding-grounds from the 

 Pleasure-boat hill to a place called Rush-hill, a distance 

 of some five hundred or six hundred yards, and were 

 thus watching over and leading their young. 



At the close of the breeding- season our native red- 

 shanks again leave the broads and more inland haunts 

 for the sea coast, frequenting more particularly the 

 salt-marshes and brackish margins of our tidal streams. 

 At Blakeney, as Mr. Dowell remarks, "they assemble 

 in small flocks about the middle of September, and are 

 particularly shy and noisy ;" and from their thus dis- 

 turbing all other wild fowl, are objects of much aversion 

 to the sportsman and professional gunner.* These 

 form, however, but a small portion of the flocks, which 

 assemble in these localities during the autumn months, 

 consisting of migratory families from the north, and 

 which leave us again after a time for more southern 

 quarters, although a few may still be met with even in 

 the sharpest weather. Again during the spring migra- 

 tion this species appears on Breydon and other parts 

 of the coast, in company with knots, godwits, and 

 ringed plover, staying only for a few days, and then 

 passing on to their northern breeding grounds. This 



* It is this habit of the redshank, and also of the turnstone 

 (as Mr. A. Newton informs me), that has given both birds in many 

 parts of Scandinavia the local name of " Tolk " or interpreter, the 

 origin of the specific appellation interpres given by Linnaeus to 

 the bird last mentioned (" Linn. CE1. och Gothl. Eesa," p. 217). 



