380 Bthliograjihical Notices. 



days ; and so well is this known to those living on the east coast of 

 Yorkshire and Lincolnshire that they have earned for themselves 

 the sobriquet of the ' Woodcock-pilots.' Almost every year I find 

 some about the second week of October, either on the Hiimber 

 embankments or in the marsh hedgerows. On the 12th of that 

 month in 1863 an extraordinary flight appeared in the Great-Cotes 

 marshes. On that morning I observed large numbers of these fairy 

 birds on the hedgerows and bushes in the open marsh district near 

 the Humber, many also creeping up and down on the reeds in the 

 drains, and at my lonely marsh farmstead quantities of these active 

 little fellows, everywhere busily searching every nook and corner on 

 the fold-yard fences, the cattle-sheds, and stacks. The Goldcrest 

 appears in flocks every year, both at Spurn and Flamborough, about 

 the middle of October ; they have on several occasions been found 

 dead beneath these lighthouses, having dashed bewildered against 

 the glass lanterns in their night migration." (Page 37.) 



Equally valuable are our author's notes on the arrival and de- 

 parture of our shore and sea birds ; but some of his personal ex- 

 periences and observations are even more especially interesting ; and 

 we only regret that we have not space for copious extracts in veri- 

 fication of our opinion. Here is a delightful little episode, the hero 

 of which is one of our rarest feathered visitors from the far north, 

 and the only example of the species that Mr. Cordeaux had ever 

 met with in the county : — 



" December 12th, 1870. I came quite suddenly this morning on 

 a beautiful little Phalarope {Phalaroptis hyperhoreus) swimming in 

 a drain near the Humber. I saw at once, by its small size (about 

 as large as a Dunlin) and plumage, that it was not the grey species. 

 The little bird rode as buoyantly as a gull upon the water, with 

 head thrown backward like a duck. It was the first occasion that 

 I have seen a Phalarope in these marshes ; I observed aU its 

 movements intently. It was shy, but not wUd, diving on my 

 approach for twenty yards up the drain, and then, leaving the water, 

 ran along the naiTow strip of ' warp ' like a Sandpiper. On my 

 moving forward it again entered the water, diving further up the 

 drain, issuing as before on to the ' warp,' but this time under the 

 opposite bank ; the dive was again repeated, when I lost sight of it 

 round a sharp bend in the stream. For the next ten minutes I 

 stood at this comer, vainly looking both up and down the drain for 

 its reappearance, and had nearly given it up when I caught sight 

 of the little creature directly opposite, and within a few feet — so near, 

 that had I reached forward I might have touched it with the gun- 

 muzzle. Xo wonder that I had overlooked it ; for it had now exactly 

 the appearance of a small lump of earth fallen from the bank ; the 

 whole of its body was sunk below the water, excepting the upper 

 part of the back and head from just below the eyes, which were 

 level with the surface — the bill and fore part of the forehead also 

 immersed, the water covering the hind part of the neck between the 

 back and head. The deception was perfect ; and had I not been 

 specially looking, I might have passed the place scores of times 



