BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 37 



the autumn, when flocks of these hardy but delicate 

 and fragile looking little creatures cross the wild 

 North Sea, arriving on our eastern shores in October. 

 The migration of the Goldcrests is now a fact as 

 well established as is that of the Woodcocks. They 

 appear about the second or third week in October, 

 preceding the Woodcocks by a few days ; and so well 

 is this known to those living on the east coast of 

 Yorkshire and Lincolnshire that they have earned for 

 themselves the soubriquet of the " Woodcock-pilots. " 

 Almost every year I find some about the second week 

 of October, either on the Humber embankments or in 

 the marsh hedgerows. On the 12th of that month 

 in 1863 an extraordinary flight appeared in the Great- 

 Cotes marshes. On that morning I observed large 

 numbers of these fairy birds on the hedgerows and 

 bushes in the open marsh district near the Humber, 

 many also creeping up and down on the reeds in the 

 drains, and at my lonely marsh farmstead quantities 

 of these active little fellows, everywhere busily search- 

 ing every nook and corner on the fold-yard fences, 

 the cattle-sheds, and stacks. The Goldcrest appears 

 in flocks every year, both at Spurn * and Flamborough, 

 about the middle of October ; they have on several 

 occasions been found dead beneath these lighthouses, 

 having dashed bewildered against the glass lanterns 

 in their night migration. 



* In 1869 the first flight of Goldcrests arrived at Spurn on 

 the night of the llth of October. Wind N. W to N. 



