THE ZooLocist—JuNE, 1872. 8095 
guano island built up, unless, indeed, the salt breezes of the ocean 
befriend the birds by destroying their parasitic tormentors. 
[Here ends my notice of Mr. Potts’ paper, and I think every reader will 
admit that it contains the most valuable as well as the most interesting 
information that has ever been published respecting the birds of New 
Zealand. The details of the structure and habits of that strange wader, the 
crookbilled plover, have never been surpassed, either in their importance to 
the systematic naturalist or their attractiveness to the general reader: they 
most forcibly illustrate my old axiom that it is not in the closet or the 
museum, but in the woods and wilds, that Nature can be studied to the 
greatest advantage. 
Scarcely have I Jain down the labours of Mr. Potts when my attention is 
invited to ‘A History of the Birds of New Zealand,’ by Dr. Buller, a work 
still more attractive on account of its illustrations, and likely to be still more 
useful on account of its promised completeness. We shall now become as 
intimately acquainted with the birds of New Zealand as with those of 
Britain, and much more so than with those of the countries nearer to our 
home.—Edward Newman.] 
Ornithological Notes from North Lincolnshire. 
By JouHn CorpeEaux, Esq. 
Marcu AnD APRIL, 1872. 
Redwing.—March 6. Last observed; a flock of about sixty, 
They left us very early this year. 
Pied Wagtail.—March 9. Considerable numbers seen, both on 
our higher lands and in the marsh. 
Curlew.—March 16. At the creek mouth this morning were 
seven curlews: they stood breast deep in the tide washing, afterwards 
arranging and smoothing down their plumage with their scythe-like 
bills. Close to the curlew, standing on one leg, with head buried 
between the shoulders, was an immature herring gull; then two 
common gulls (mature) and four “ brown heads” in their summer 
caps, a flock of dunlins, one solitary hooded crow, and in shore 
eight scaup—four males and four females swimming in pairs. All 
these birds within about twenty or thirty square yards, forming 
altogether an interesting group. 
Snipe.—March 16. After an absence of many weeks are returning 
towards the coast. I flushed seven couples this afternoon from two 
small patches of wet meadow. 
