92 The Zoologist — February, 1866. 



single individuals first take wing, and then the whole mass rise up 

 together. They roost, like the dotterells, on the beach, settling down 

 above high-water mark, and are very shy at night, getting up at the 

 least sound of footsteps. I have found them on the flats when out 

 before daybreak in the morning, so it would appear that they feed to 

 some extent during the night. At high water they pack in vast flocks, 

 sometimes mounting high in the air, driving about like a small cloud 

 with the wind; at other times sweeping over the fields in their im- 

 petuous course. They are down upon you in an instant with a rushing 

 noise, displaying perhaps the while of their under surface, and then 

 changing in the twinkling of an eye into a dark mass, as they wlieel 

 off" in some other direction. The provincial name for the dunlin in 

 these parts is " ox-bird." 



Heron. — The nearest heronries to this part of Essex are those of 

 Waustead Park and Chilham Castle, in Kent, so that it may be pre- 

 sumed that the numbers we have here in the marshes come from these 

 two colonies. While out shooting some time ago 1 put up twenty-five 

 at once. This was at high water, when they are to be found very 

 often together on the saltings. They are fond of the salt-water creeks, 

 which are so extensively patronized by the redshanks, and especially 

 of those devoted to oyster culture, where they n)ake, I expect, some 

 capital meals. 



Curlew. — Great numbers of curlews feed on the flats, in company 

 with godwits, dunlins and sea gulls. They generally are the first to 

 alight on those parts just laid bare by the falling tide. I have never 

 seen them so plentiful anywhere in England as they are here; but 

 notwithstanding their great numbers very k\\ are shot. They are so 

 excessively wary, and the coast is so open, that it is next to impossible, 

 to get near them. 



Martin. — Both the swallow and the martin are very plentiful here 

 in summer, especially, however, the latter, seven or eight of whose 

 nests 1 have seen together on one house front. The swallow breeds 

 near Shoebury to a great extent, under the bridges over the water- 

 courses in the marshes. The last swallow I observed was on the 5tb 

 of November, but the martins left sooner, on the 30th of October. 

 I saw, however, to my surprise, a couple of sand martins on the ISth 

 of November. 



W. Vincent Legge. 

 South Shoebury, November 20, 1865. 



