BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 133 



pearing mainly dependent on the mildness or severity 

 of the weather. 



The Knots commence their return southward in 

 August : there are usually small companies to be 

 found on the " flats " during the first fortnight in that 

 month ; and in the autumn succeeding the dry hot 

 summer of 1870 they appeared in very large flocks 

 as early as the first week in August*. These early 

 flocks are composed principally of the young of the 

 year (having the buff breast) , with a sprinkling of old 

 birds in various stages of change, the full summer 

 plumage being quite exceptional. The southern 

 movement is continued all through September and 

 October, flight after flight arriving on the foreshore. 

 About the end of the latter month, or early in No- 

 vember, what may be called the main body arrives, 

 the flocks at this time often numbering many thou- 

 sands f. In the spring the movement northward is 



* In the summer of 1872, in the first and second weeks of 

 July there were flocks of Knots on the Yorkshire and Lincoln- 

 shire coast ; and on the 23rd of the same month I saw a small 

 flock near Flushing, at the mouth of the Schelde. 



f The following extract on this species from one of my note- 

 books was published in the < Zoologist ' for 1866, p. 75 : " No- 

 vember_4th. This evening, shortly before sunset, I witnessed a 

 most extraordinary gathering of Knots on the Humber flats. 

 When at some distance from the 'bank I was attracted by the 

 noise made in their occasional short flights along the coast the 

 roar, or rather rush, made by their wings in flight reminding 

 me, more than any thing else, of the noise made by a mighty 

 host of Starlings when settling down for the night. On cau- 



