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ON FORMER BREEDING-PLACES OF THE 



OYSTERCATCHER AND BLACK-HEADED 



GULL IN EAST SUSSEX. 



BY 



N. F. TICEHURST, m.a., f.r.c.s.eng. 



That the Oystercatcher {Hcematopus o. osiralegus) formerly 

 bred at all suitable spots, i.e., where there were tracts of 

 shingle of sufficient size, along the coast of Sussex, is highly 

 probable. So far as I can find out, however, no proof of this 

 as regards the eastern half has hitherto been forthcoming, 

 the only evidence being Borrer's (as to locality somewhat 

 vague) statement {B. of Sussex, p. 212) that " another 

 favourite resort is the widely-spread mass of shingle near 

 Rye, where it still breeds in considerable numbers." His 

 information with regard to this end of the county seems to 

 have been often defective and largely second hand, and this 

 sentence might easily be taken as referring to the small colony 

 of Oystercatchers that bred at the Midrips, just within the 

 Kent boundary, up to about the middle of the last century, 

 being represented by a single pair down to 1890, the year 

 when he wrote. That Borrer's statement was true at that 

 time of the other shingle banks at Rye and between Rye and 

 Winchelsea, I should prefer to consider unproven without a 

 great deal more evidence. 



Of the Black-headed Gull {Lams r. ridibundiis) having ever 

 been a breeding species in east Sussex, there does not hitherto 

 seem to have been a suspicion. It is agreeable, therefore, 

 to be in a position to bring forward evidence of there having 

 been two breeding stations of both species in the seventeenth 

 century, one on the shingle banks and marshlands on the 

 seaward side of Winchelsea, the other on an area of a similar 

 type between Eastbourne and Pevensey. 



Taking the Winchelsea site first, the evidence for this 

 rests upon a letter from the Earl of Suffolk to the Mayor of 

 Rye, dated June 21st, 1638, preserved amongst the Corporation 

 archives at Rye. By the courtes}^ of Mr. Walter Dawes, 

 the Town Clerk of that town, I have b€en able to transcribe 

 this and reproduce it here : — 



" To my very lovinge freinde the Mayer of the Towne of Rye 

 theise 



After my very harty Commendacons : whereas my Cozin S"' Henry 

 Gilford, Knight, hath made knowne unto me a greate wronge and 

 abuse that some of your Towne of Rye hath offered unto him, in 



