The Zoologist— Decembeu, 1869. 1945 



As ^^■e walked over the sand-hills xve disturbed numbers of moths, 

 the yellow undeiwing and silver Y, and many red admiral and lesser 

 tortoiseshell butterflies. I remarked several species of Fun-^us; 

 amongst these the common " hinkhorn." The only plants now in 

 flower were the ragwort and the pretty pink crane's-bill. During the 

 morning we got long and fruitless shots both at the sheldrake and 

 redthroated diver: the latter bird had the throat white. Returning 

 across the mud-flats on the Humber side of the hills my friend got a 

 long right and left, bagging a godwit with his first, and a fine imma- 

 ture male great blackbacked gull with his second barrel : it was only 

 by wading out far and deep that the latter was recovered. Near the 

 chalk bank, where some years since the sea broke across into the 

 Humber, I saw two rock pipits, the only birds of this species seen. 

 The hooded crows arrived about the 9th, and were now everywhere in 

 small parties foraging along both coasts. 



At 3 P.M. we were on board again, weighed anchor, and setting 

 main, fore and jib sails, stood across towards the opposite coast; 

 passed the Haile buoy off" the dreaded "Donna Nook" on the Lin- 

 colnshire side, and then tacked and ran to the east of the Newsound 

 hght-ship. Our object was to look up the redthroated divers. Several 

 guillemots and two or three puflSns were seen, but, so far, no large 

 divers. At last 1 caught sight of two swimming together, about "a 

 quarter of a mile away oflf the starboard bow. We had an exciting 

 chase, and although we got out the boat to circumvent them, they finally 

 escaped: there was scarcely any breeze at tlie time, and the divers 

 went to windward much more rapidly than we could. The glass 

 showed one of these birds to have the cheeks and front neck pure 

 white; the other and larger of the two had the throat dark. I dare 

 not say how many shots were fired, but having only No. 6 in the 

 cartridges is some extenuation of our failme— at least we choose to 

 consider it so. Another dark-necked diver never let us approach 

 nearer than tliree hundred yards. At 6.30 p. m. we were back at our 

 anchorage off" the Spurn lights. 



October 13tli, 6 a. m. Again on shore. The only valuable bird seen 

 during our morning walk was a Richardson's skua: it was flying 

 close in along the coast, but took precaution to take a wide sweep out 

 to sea when opposite our lurking-place. This same bird had been 

 observed during the morning from the yacht, harrying the "brown- 

 heads." There was a stiff'brecze now blowing, making it necessary to get 

 on board again immediately. The wind had chopped suddenly north. 



SECOND SERIES — VOL- IV. 3 N 



