96 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



ing up into pairs during a few weeks in the nesting- 

 season ; and even at this period, on being disturbed, 

 the various pairs in the marsh will often unite till the 

 danger is past. In wet winters enormous migratory 

 flocks visit our marshes, feeding and roosting by day 

 on the arable and pasture land. In the evening, just 

 at dusk, they resort with great regularity to those 

 fields on the higher lands of the middle marsh and on 

 the Wolds where the turnips have been fed-off, or to 

 the young wheats, returning again to the marshes at 

 daybreak. They nest early ; and we find eggs by the 

 last week in March. In this district, however, a large 

 proportion of the first eggs are destroyed by the 

 various processes of agriculture. From the many 

 pairs which nest annually in these marshes, from one 

 cause or other very few young birds are reared*. 



There are undoubtedly immense arrivals of Lap- 

 wings in the autumn, coming either from more 

 northern counties or the continent. In support of 

 the latter view, I may state that when on the coast at 

 this season I have seen large flocks passing inland 

 from the sea, usually flying at a great height. The 

 autumn flocks visiting our marshes are enormously in 

 excess of our resident birds. 



* I find our deep marsh-drains, into which they seem to have 

 a particular facility for tumbling, are a very fertile source of 

 destruction to the young broods. I have often in the summer 

 months rescued whole families of the little creatures from these 

 pitfalls. 



