NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



extremely like sandpipers, and are occasionally mis- 

 taken for them. They are most expert swimmers. The 

 red-necked phalarope is a much rarer visitant. I shot 

 one morning a black tern and that elegant little wader 

 the pigmy curlew, or curlew sandpiper. Gulls and 

 terns are, of course, constantly fishing along the coast. 

 Two elegant plovers, the ring-plover and the grey 

 plover, are to be noted. The ring-plover is to be con- 

 stantly met with, running with twinkling feet along 

 the wet sands ; the grey plover is not a common 

 visitant, but is occasionally to be seen. Oyster-catchers 

 are not uncommon. On the Marsh itself, besides many 

 small birds, snipe, wildfowl, herons, partridges, and 

 the green plover, which nests here commonly, are 

 familiar ; the hen harrier is now and again to be noted. 

 And at intervals peregrine falcons, which breed in the 

 cliffs not a dozen miles away — I will not indicate pre- 

 cisely where, for obvious reasons — sweep over the wide 

 Level. I am told that Montagu's harrier and the Marsh 

 harrier have been seen on Pevensey Marshes. These 

 rare wanderers I have myself never had the good 

 fortune to set eyes on in this locality. 



It is curious to note with what extraordinary regu- 

 larity the hooded crows appear and disappear in this 

 part of Sussex. These birds come to the marshes 

 for the winter, arriving from the north about the middle 

 of October, and leaving towards the end of March for 

 their spring and summer quarters in Norway and else- 

 where. In the mild winters experienced during the 

 last few years the sea-going ducks have been less com- 

 mon than in harder seasons. Black scoters, often 

 called *' black duck," are exceptions, however ; they are 

 constantly to be seen in Pevensey Bay. In January 

 of the year 1902 I watched some two hundred of them 

 riding easily on the tide 200 yards from the shore. 



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