9574 Birds. 



shire. One or two pairs of these birds may generally be found on a 

 small stream which forms the eastern boundary of this parish. It is 

 not, I think, improbable that they breed in the neighbourhood, as it 

 contains several quiet retreats well adapted for this purpose : I 

 have seen a pair of green sandpipers on our stream as late as the 

 5lh of May ; and two or three years since, iu August, put up five of 

 these birds altogether, probably a joung brood, from the side of an 

 osier bed. Often when first flushed they fly low down near the water, 

 following the windings of the " beck," and then suddenly pitch down 

 on some liltlle mud bank. When repeatedly disturbed, however, they 

 rise high, flying round the intruder in a wide circle, all the time 

 uttering their wild shrill whistle, and then going straight off" to some 

 distant part of the stream. These birds feed by night as well as by 

 day, as I have occasionally on moonlight nights put them up from the 

 shallows in the streams, their well-known cry being then the only 

 means of distinguishing them from a snipe. 



Golden Plover. — A specimen of this bird was sent to me on the 

 1st of April. It had been shot in the marshes, and is probably the 

 last I shall have an opportunity of examining this season, as in the 

 course of a few days they will have left the neighbourhood. I once, 

 however, saw a solitary specimen in full summer plumage as late as 

 the 10th of May. As yet this bird shows but little signs of any change 

 in plumage. On pulling out, however, one by one, the while feathers 

 from the under parts I found the young crop coming underneath, the 

 black feathers just bursting out from their blue sheaths. There did 

 not, however, appear to be a sufficient growth of these new black 

 feathers to make up the full summer plumage. Probably, as some 

 ornithologists assert, the deficiency is made up by many of the white 

 feathers becoming changed by the black pigment from white to black. 

 In the bird I examined a considerable portion — at least two-thirds — 

 would have been entirely new feathers. 



John Cordeaux. 

 Great Cotes, Ulceby, Lincolnshire. 



Ornithological Notes from Norfolk. By HiiNRY Stkvenson, Esq. 



(Continued from page 9496.) 



Rednecked Grebe. — In looking over my notes for the last two 

 months (February and March), the most noticeable fact is the extra- 



