440 The Zoologist — October, 1866. 



Sandpiper. — No bird is more generally met with in this district 

 than the sandpiper : not only are they found on the banks of its many 

 streams and the larger lakes, but almost every little tarn has its pair 

 or tuo of sandpipers, and their shrill cry, as they flit over some 

 dark mountain llyn, is often the only sound which greets the wanderer 

 in these wilds. I observed several pairs about Llyn Cwellyn : seldom 

 disturbed they are unusually fearless, and 1 have watched them as 

 they ran along the shingle within a few yards of my position, as if 

 perfectly aware they were safe: they not unfrequently run along the 

 wall-tops bordering the streams. Their most favourite promenade, 

 however, is along the rail of some cattle-fence projecting out into the 

 lake. The nest is usually placed amidst the rank aquatic vegetation 

 bordering the Uyns : sometimes, I suspect, in a hole in a wall, when 

 fishing I have seen sandpipers enter the holes between the round 

 boulders built up in these Welch walls, and, from their solicitude that 

 I should leave the spot, had evidently a nest at hand. On certain 

 nights, from some cause or other, perhaps from a change in the 

 weather, sandpipers are extremely noisy : one night in particular, from 

 ten to eleven o'clock, the Cwellyn Valley seemed quite lively with 

 their constantly repeated call-notes. I found it impossible to fix the 

 locality from which the cries proceeded; apparently they came from 

 every point of the compass, often sounding far up amongst the moun- 

 tains. I never heard the sandpipers so noisy as they were on this 

 night, and, judging from their incessant calls, there must have been 

 several on the wing. 



Lesser Blackhacked Gull. — This gull is said to breed in small 

 numbers in some parts of the Principality. I was told there is a colony 

 of them in a boatless tarn near Snowdon, about ten pairs of these gulls 

 breeding there ; I had not time, however, to visit it. I observed 

 several of them during my stay in the Vale of Cwellyn, at one time 

 eleven together, and one mature bird in particular was a daily forager 

 along the shores of the llyn. 



John Cordeaux. 

 Great Cotes, Ulceby, Lincolnsbire, 

 August 22, 1866. 



