98 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



may be found on our shores up to the end of that 

 month, and occasionally even in June. 



152. CALIDRIS ARENARIA (Linnaeus). Sanderling. 



Provincial. Sand-runner. 



Like the preceding, appears in the autumn in small 

 family parties on our flat sandy coasts. They do not 

 appear to congregate in large bodies like the Dunlin, 

 as we invariably find them either in pairs, or from two 

 and three to seven and eight together, and very rarely 

 at any time in flocks exceeding twenty or thirty birds *. 

 The Sanderling arrives in August, and occasionally as 

 early as the last week in July f. They may generally 

 be found in greater or less numbers on the coast 

 during the winter and throughout the following spring, 

 departing finally for their distant breeding-stations 

 in the far north, wherever these may be, towards the 

 end of May J ; and as the old birds, accompanied by 

 their young, are back with us in August, it leaves but 

 a short time for the duties of incubation and the 

 growth of the young . Sanderlings seldom go any 



* Mr. Boynton, speaking of the Bridlington coast, says, u we 

 had the greatest numbers here in February 1870 1 ever remember ; 

 they were in flocks from twenty to fifty." 



t On the 25th of July, 1864, 1 saw a small flock of six on the 

 Yorkshire coast between Bridlington Quay and Flamborough. 



J The latest period Mr. Boynton has observed them on the 

 Yorkshire coast was on the 30th of that month in 1869, when 

 he shot a male in summer plumage. 



It is rather remarkable that the Knot, Sanderling, and Grey 

 Plover, species which nest further up within the Arctic Circle 



