422 Scolopacidce. 



found alone. Another instance of its occurrence in Wiltshire 

 was communicated to me by the Rev. A. W. Phelps, who informed 

 me that a specimen had been killed from the ' Diamond/ opposite 

 the Abbey at Amesbury, by Sir E. Antrobus' keeper, on the 

 August Bank Holiday of last year (1886). A third passed 

 through the hands of Mr. Grant, which was shot at Foxhanger 

 in August, 1870. A fourth, as I am told by Lord Methuen, was 

 shot near the waters at Corsham Court, and is preserved there. 

 Mr. Rawlence possesses a specimen killed at Gombledon, near 

 Salisbury ; and Lord Heytesbury called my attention to an 

 instance of which the Rev. G. Powell had previously informed 

 me, which had been observed on the 27th of August, 1868, by 

 Mr. William Swayne, in the Knook meadows in the parish of 

 Heytesbury, and after flushing it several times, that gentleman 

 contrived to get a shot at it as it rose from some rushes and 

 killed it. It appeared to have been wearied by previous long 

 flight; and my informant, who examined the bird carefully, 

 believes it to have been a young bird and a hen. The Green- 

 shank, though a scarce bird in England, does make its appear- 

 ance almost every year as a straggler, and is generally observed 

 during the spring or autumn migrations, either on its way to or 

 its return from its breeding-places in the far north. Hence the 

 specimen last mentioned was undoubtedly on its journey south- 

 wards when it halted to rest in the parish of Heytesbury. Like 

 many others of its congeners, it will on occasions perch on the 

 top of a tall tree, to the no small astonishment of the observer* 

 who is ignorant of this unlooked-for habit in a true wader. Its 

 beak is, though very slightly, yet perceptibly curved upwards. 

 In connection with this upturned beak, Mr. Harting remarked a 

 peculiarity in its manner of feeding, for he noticed that it placed 

 the bill upon the surface, the under mandible almost parallel 

 with the mud, and as it advanced scooped from side to side after 

 the fashion of the Avocet, leaving a curious zigzag line im- 

 pressed upon the ooze.* Its food consists of small molluscs, 

 worms, beetles, and insects of various kinds. Our English word 

 'Birds of Middlesex,' p. 181. 



