442 SCOLOPACIDyE. 



was shot by Mr. James Gray on the sea-banks at Low- 

 houghton Low Stead, in Northumberland, on the 21st 

 November, 1879. Mr. Bolam writes : " It had been in 

 the neighbourhood for about a week before it was killed, 

 and was in the habit of frequenting the long grass or 

 ' bents,' with which the links at Low Stead are covered. 

 Mr. Henry Grey, who had a very good opportunity of ob- 

 serving it while alive, and who spent a considerable time in 

 watching its habits, informs me that it was not at all shy, and 

 when amongst the tall grass lay like a Snipe or Woodcock, 

 allowing him to approach within a few yards of it before 

 rising, and when flushed, after flying for a short distance 

 (seldom more than a hundred yards at a time), it would 

 again drop into the long grass, or alighting on the bare 

 sand would run off to some convenient place of shelter. 

 When surprised in the open, without any covert at hand 

 amongst which to hide, it ran very swiftly, frequently stop- 

 ping behind a stone, or, after it had got some distance away 

 from him, standing on a slight hillock or other eminence 

 and watching his movements, its tail all the while moving 

 up and down with a peculiar swaying sort of motion, not 

 observable in any of the other Sandpipers. Its note, uttered 

 for the most part when flying, was a shrill piping whistle. 

 Very unfortunately, it had not recovered from the autumnal 

 moult, many of the feathers being only partly grown, while 

 others are entirely wanting. On dissection it proved to be 

 a female, and the day after it had been shot, when it came 

 into my possession, weighed 5J oz., but as it was badly 

 wounded and had bled a good deal, it must, when newly 

 dead, have been considerably heavier."* Kespecting a sixth 

 example, Mr. J. E. Harting writes (Zool. 1880, p. 508), 

 that on the 27th October, the late Mr. Cooper, the taxi- 

 dermist of Kadnor Street, St. Luke's, brought for his 

 inspection a freshly-killed specimen which had been pur- 

 chased in Leadenhall Market, hanging up with a lot of 

 Plovers, said to have come with it from Lincolnshire. The 

 stomach contained numerous fragments of wing-cases of 



* 'The Field,' 20th Dec. 1879 ; and Pr. Berwick Nat. Club, 1880, p. 167. 



