3720 The Zoologist — October, 1873. 



the coast. Swallows and martins have not yet diminished in 

 number, but the former are congregating every morning on the tele- 

 graph-wires. Martins are in many places still feeding their young. 

 Should these gales continue I shall expect to see phalaropes in a 

 few days. I have just examined a fine old hobby which had been 

 knocked down by a young man with a stone : having lost several 

 young ducks lately, and thinking a havck to be the thief, he watched, 

 and had not watched long before he saw the hobby perch on an 

 apple tree close by, upon which he took up a stone and knocked it 

 down, breaking its wing by the blow ; then, after keeping the poor 

 bird alive for a few days, he carried it to a birdstuffer, who killed 

 and stuffed it ; but I could find nothing in its stomach save the 

 remains of the common dung beetle. 



John Gatcombe. 



8, Lower Dumford Street, Stonehouse, Plymouth, 

 September 5, 1873. 



On the Migration and Habits of the Curlew Sandpiper (Tringa 

 subarquata, Giildenstaedt). By John Cordeaux, Esq. 



At the end of the last week in August and early in September 

 there was an extraordinary migratory arrival of curlew sandpipers 

 in the Great Cotes marshes. 



On the 31st of August I was crossing a very bare sheep-walk, 

 about a mile from the shore, when I came upon a flock of small 

 waders sitting breast to the wind, and very much resembling liltle 

 lumps of chalk scattered over the short green herbage. I supposed 

 them either dunlins or ringed plovers, hundreds of which at this 

 season frequent these marshes; but on bringing my binocular to 

 bear it became at once apparent that they were neither of these : 

 from the peculiar tint of tjie under parts they might, however, have 

 passed muster for young knots in the plumage of the first autumn, 

 but if so they were the smallest knots I had ever seen. A nearer 

 acquaintance therefore became absolutely necessary before I could 

 determine the species, and I had no gun. A slight hollow, where 

 an old top grip had been filled in, favoured an approach, and up 

 this I wriggled for some distance, and then slowly bringing my 

 eyes level with the surface, found I was within twenty yards; one 

 look through the glass at this distance was sufficient to show they 

 were curlew sandpipers. There were sixty or seventy, somewhat 



