THE KNOT TRINGA. 197 



and not over-credible display of his own wisdom, has not 

 been said. There is no doubt that the knot was in the 

 country before Canute ; that it was as familiar with the tides 

 as it is now, and that the king might, had he been so minded, 

 have learned from it the necessity of flitting before the 

 returning flood. 



This species is larger than either of the former. It is 

 more than ten inches long, nineteen in the stretch of the 

 wings, and weighs from four to five ounces. The tail is 

 square and very broad at the end. The bill is straighter 

 and rather shorter in proportion than that of the purple 

 tringa, the tarsi are longer, and the hind toe turns inward 

 like that of the turnstone. The general structure of its. feet 

 adapts it to softer surfaces than those upon which the purple 

 species is chiefly found. In the winter season, these birds 

 flock in very considerable numbers, and run very swiftly 

 upon the sands, which, with the fens, are their principal 

 haunts. Like most others of this and the analogous genera, 

 they change their plumage with the seasons, and on that 

 account have got various names. In former times, they 

 were more plentiful in England than they are now, since the 

 fens have been reduced by drainage ; but they still assemble 

 in considerable numbers in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and 

 other fenny parts of the country, the period of their congre- 

 gating being as early as August. Flocking at that particular 

 time of the year, and that, too, not on the sands, but on the 

 fens, upon which the birds remain till the frost prevents 

 their feeding there, is not very consistent with breeding and 

 moulting in the arctic regions (and birds usually moult, more 

 or less, in the same places where they breed), although, being 

 widely distributed, these birds are found far to the north. 

 It seems from the accounts, that they appear simultaneously 

 on those parts of the east and west coasts that are adapted 

 to their habits ; and that though their numbers are every- 



