DUNLIN. 377 



to meet with a like fate, judging by the species which are 

 occasionally captured.* At Holme, near Hunstanton, 

 Mr. A, W. Partridge, of Thetford, has been also suc- 

 cessful with these long netsf (some seven feet in depth 

 and raised three feet from the ground), but has there 

 ranged them on the seaward side of the broad tidal 

 basin, which I have before described as a favourite 

 resort of the shore-birds at low water. 



Prom the remarks of the lighthouse-keepers on our 

 coast, I believe this species may be included amongst 

 those migrants which, attracted by the light of the 

 lamps, are killed through contact with the plate-glass 

 windows. A very intelligent man at the Lowestoft 

 High Light, who had formerly been stationed at Offord- 

 ness, assured me that "oxbirds" (a common name for 

 the dunlin in some counties) were picked up at times 

 in considerable numbers, at the foot of the Offord 

 Light. Stragglers are also met with at chance times 

 far inland, but their appearance in such localities is, I 

 imagine, more the result of accident than choice, as a 

 single bird was picked up dead under the telegraph 

 wires on the 8th of February, 1860, after a severe gale 



* The following may be enumerated as having been taken 

 by this means, and many of the birds being uninjured have been 

 afterwards kept in confinement in the Zoological Society's Gardens, 

 London, and in Mr. Gurney's aviaries, at Catton : Owls, larks, 

 golden and grey plovers, curlews, redshanks, bar-tailed godwits, 

 woodcocks, knots, dunlins, oyster-catchers, storm petrels, shell- 

 ducks, wild-ducks, wigeons, and teal, together with black-headed, 

 kittiwake, common, herring, and great black-backed gulls. The 

 pectoral sandpiper, described as netted by Hornigold, near Lynn, 

 was, I understand, taken in this manner. 



f A somewhat similar method is adopted at Morecambe Bay, 

 as Mr. J. H. Gurney informs me, but the nets, of a like descrip- 

 tion, are set on the sea-walls during dark nights. Large numbers 

 of oyster-catchers are taken, but, singularly enough, no dunlins, 

 although they are generally abundant on that coast. 

 3 c 



