234 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



by Yarrell (" British Birds/' vol. ii., p. 614)* on the 

 authority of the individual who sold it to Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, I had also the assurance, about three years 

 back, of the late Mr. John Sayer, of this city, that it 

 was a skin when placed in his hands to be stuffed. 

 A statement which I am the more ready to believe 

 from a recent and careful examination of the bird in 

 question. 



TOTANUS GLOTTIS (Linnaeus). 

 GEEENSHANK. 



The Greenshank is a regular though by no means 

 numerous visitant to our coast, as a bird of passage, 

 making its appearance with other migrants about the 

 first week in May, and again at the close of the breed- 

 ing season by the beginning of August. Being an 

 extremely shy species but few specimens are .obtained 

 at either season, and these for the most part with the 

 punt gun ; and though stragglers are occasionally 

 met with on our inland streams, the tidal channels of 

 Breydon and Blakeney, or the flat sandy shores of the 

 " Wash," between Lynn and Hunstanton, have evidently 

 most attractions for them during their brief stay. 



and but for this circumstance would have omitted this species 

 altogether from his List of British birds, believing that the examples 

 figured by Edwards and Bewick were no other than specimens of 

 the common sandpiper. Since that time, however, this American 

 species is said to have occurred in Great Britain, in several 

 instances, but I am glad to learn that Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., is 

 engaged in sifting the evidence upon which these records have 

 been made, most of which are, I suspect, extremely doubtful. 



* This was omitted in the 3rd edition of Yarrell's " British 

 Birds." 



