100 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



and winter, both on the coasts of Lincolnshire and 

 Holderness. Like the Sanderling and Turnstone is 

 very rarely seen within the Humber, the deep muddy 

 flats of our foreshores being unsuited to their habits. 

 I have seen them in large flocks on our Lincolnshire 

 coast and at Flamborough in July. 



&EALLATOEES. GRUID&. 



154. GRUS CINEREA, Bechstein. Crane. 



In the 'Zoologist' for 1869 (p. 1842) Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, Jun., has recorded several occurrences of 

 this rare visitor in England during that spring one 

 of these, a young male now in his collection, killed 

 on Hykeham Moor, near Lincoln, by Mr. Shuttle- 

 worth on the 20th of July*. 



Gibraltar, there is an isolated part of a marsh where oyster- 

 catchers breed in such abundance that a fisherman informed us 

 he had taken a bushel of eggs in a morning." 



* Ray informs us that this species occurred in his time (1628) 

 in large flocks during the winter in Lincolnshire and Cambridge- 

 shire. We may judge of its former abundance by the fact of 

 204 having been provided for the celebrated Neville banquet 

 in the reign of Edward IV. 



From a note to Thompson's ' History of Boston/ p. 675, it 

 appears that by the Fen laws, passed at the "court view of free 

 pledges, and court-leet of the East, West, and North Fens, with 

 their members, held at Revesby 19th of October, 1780," it was 

 decreed that " no person shall bring up or take any Swan's eggs, 

 or Crane's eggs, or young birds of that kind, on pain of forfeiting 

 for every offence 3 shillings and four-pence." This edict looks 

 very much like shutting the stable-door after the horse was 

 stolen. It appears somewhat singular, after the evidence of 



