3548 The Zoologist— June, 1873. 



rough adverse passage. If not disturbed they He all day like stones, just 

 where they happen to have pitched, and will in some cases allow themselves 

 to be taken up by the hand. A few hours' rest quickly recruits their 

 exhausted energies, and at night they again resume their flight, which, 

 excepting for the circumstances of the difficult passage, would never have 

 been broken. The autumn of 1870 was one of the best woodcock seasons 

 known for many years on the Lincolnshire coast. On the ISth October a 

 terrific north-easter brought a large flight ; on the 26th of the same month 

 there was another very heavy gale from the north-west, and in that and the 

 succeeding mornings great and unusual numbers were shot all along the 

 east coast of Lincolnshire and Holderuess. Many sportsmen entertain the 

 opinion that the ' cocks ' cross singly and not in flocks, from the fact of their 

 always being found the morning after landing, solitary and some distance 

 apart, and also that single birds are occasionally seen at daybreak coming in 

 from the sea. The probabihty is that the flights break up immediately on 

 making land, each bird dropping alone. The single birds observed to come 

 at daybreak are doubtless those which have alighted on some of the 

 numerous sand-banks, bare at low water, which fringe our flat Lincolnshire 

 coast, the rising tide compelling them to shift their quarters. The light- 

 keeper at Flamhorough told me that he once saw a flight of ' cocks ' arrive 

 on the Headland in day-time. They usually reach Flamborough with a 

 north or north-east wind, and drop immediately on landing, either just 

 topping the cliffs, or, in stormy weather, dropping at their base, sheltering 

 in any little cove or hollow worn by the waves at the base of the rocks. 

 The dwellers on the Headland or at Spuni are in the autumn led to expect 

 their arrival by the appearance of the goldcrested wrens, better known as 

 ' woodcock pilots.' It is a remarkable and well-ascertained fact that these 

 little fellows almost invariably precede the woodcocks by a few days ; others 

 again draw similar conclusions from the shorteared owl and redwing. On 

 the Lincolnshire coast the rule is that four days after the hooded crows the 

 woodcocks come. As a rule, on their first arrival they are very fat and in 

 good condition ; we occasionally, although rarely, meet with an exception. 

 I have weighed them from 12'J to as low as 7 ounces." — P. 124. 



The dunlin is a favourite with all our ornithologists. Montagu, 

 in his invaluable 'Dictionary' (p. 76), has been very diffuse on its 

 variations ; and although at first he evidently considered the duulin 

 and purre distinct species, he eventually became thoroughly con- 

 vinced that they were the same species in summer and winter 

 plumage : this combination of two well-known birds obtained 

 careful investigation and confirmation at the hands of Temminck 

 and Selby, and Meyer, fully convinced of the propriety of their 

 conclusions, proposed to annul the technical names of " alpina" 



