472 CHARADRIIDJ3. 



its great powers of flight, indicated by its long wings, 

 it has, as might be expected, an extensive geographical 

 range. 



Mr. Bullock, of the London Museum, in the eleventh 

 volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, thus 

 records the first captures of this species in this country : 



" The first instance of this bird having been killed in 

 Britain occurred in 1807, when one was shot in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Ormskirk, in Lancashire : it was preserved by 

 Mr. J. Sherlock, of that place, from whom I purchased it 

 a few days afterwards. On the 16th of August, 1812, I 

 killed another specimen of this bird in the Isle of Unst, 

 about three miles from the northern extremity of Britain. 

 When I first discovered it, it rose within a few feet and 

 flew round me in the manner of a Swallow, and then 

 alighted close to the head of a cow that was tethered within 

 ten yards' distance. After examining it a few minutes, I 

 returned to the house of T. Edmondson, Esq. for my gun, 

 and, accompanied by that gentleman's brother, went in 

 search of it. After a short time it came out of some 

 growing corn, and was catching insects at the time I fired ; 

 and, being only wounded in the wing, we had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining it alive. In the form of its bill, wings, 

 and tail, as well as its mode of flight, it greatly resembles 

 the genus Hirundo ; but, contrary to the whole of this 

 family, the legs were long, and bare above the knee, agree- 

 ing with Tringa ; and, like the Sandpipers, it ran with the 

 greatest rapidity when on the ground, or in shallow water, 

 in pursuit of its food, which was wholly of flies, of which 

 its stomach was full." 



The bird killed near Ormskirk was in the collection of the 

 late Earl of Derby. The other remained in Mr. Bullock's 

 possession till the sale of the contents of his museum in 

 1819; when I find, by a reference to my priced catalogue, 



