The Zoologist — November, 1869. 1905 



Ornithological Notes from North Lincolnshire. 

 By John Cokdeaox, Esq. 



(Continued from S. S. 1841). 



August and September, 1869. 



Kingjisher. — Where do all the kingfishers, so plentiful at this 

 season in the marshes, come from ? This year they are abundant, and 

 I have seen three on the wing together : there is no doubt we have 

 considerable arrivals of these brilliant living gems during the last 

 week in July to the first week in August inclusive : for years I have 

 observed how numerous they become about this time, and since few- 

 breed in this district — none, as I am aware, in the marsh — this large 

 increase during the latter summer must be consequent on arrivals from 

 the northern countries on the Continent; if the latter, they are — 

 excepting, perhaps, the whimbrel — the first migrants to arrive on 

 our shores, the advanced guard of the great bird army. But where do 

 they come from ? This species, according to Mr. Wheelwright, has 

 never been detected breeding in Scandinavia, and is but sparingly 

 dispersed over Denmark ; consequently, if continental birds, the 

 migration must be due from the coast of Holland, and they would 

 thus naturally arrive on our eastern coast. I scarcely think they are 

 wanderers from our more northern counties, as the sudden disap- 

 pearance of the broods from their summer haunts could not fail ere 

 this to have been noticed and recorded. A few, very few, of these 

 arrivals remain for the winter, the greater part leaving before autumn 

 floods and storms. 



Brownheaded Gull. — August 23. I have more than once remarked, 

 in former volumes of the ' Zoologist,' on the habit these gulls have of 

 hawking for the crane-fly. I had again, this afternoon, the pleasure 

 of seeing my favourite gulls capturing insects on the wing, hovering 

 with a curious see-saw motion over one of the marsh pastures. I took 

 some pains to estimate the number of gulls that were at work over 

 this field (50 acres), and by counting, as near as was possible, the 

 birds over one section of the pasture, judged that there were alto- 

 gether certainly not less than six hundred. It was not this time, how- 

 ever, the crane-fly they were pursuing, but winged swarms of black 

 ants, infinite myriads of which filled the air. I have seen nothing like 

 it before, and feel how utterly hopeless it is to give any correct idea 

 of their number — sometimes they had the appearance of a gray mist, 

 or scud, drifting across the marsh : it was as if all the ants in the 



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