LAKE, SWAMP, AND REED BED. IO/ 



an interval of seventeen years; or the two speci- 

 mens of the Red-breasted Goose (the only two the 

 county can boast) within a mile or so of each other, 

 but with an interval of nine years between them ; 

 and lastly, the two Rose-coloured Pastors (a male 

 and a female) shot on Berry Head, with an interval 

 of six years between them. In other parts of the 

 country we may instance the remarkable number 

 of Tawny Pipits that has been secured in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of Brighton, and the 

 oft-repeated visits of the Serin Finch to the 

 same locality. The migrational coincidences of 

 Heligoland are even more interesting, but in the 

 present state of our knowledge of the subject it is 

 more than difficult to assign a cause. 



Notwithstanding the hilly nature of the country, 

 Devonshire is fairly well supplied with marshes 

 and swampy ground, especially in the vicinity of 

 the coast. With the salt-water marshes we do not 

 propose here to deal, reserving them for a future 

 chapter dealing with bird-life along the shore. One 

 of the most characteristic marsh birds of Devon 

 is the Lapwing. There are few marshy tracts 

 of any size where this the handsomest of our native 

 Plovers does not occur, and often in numbers most 



