2458 The Zoologist — February, 1871. 



found the eggs of the greenshank in a squirrel's drey, and that the 

 nestlings reach the ground by the very simple process of being 

 thrown down by their parents while quite young, their thick downy 

 clothing protecting their light bodies from harm. 



JMany readers of the 'Zoologist' will recollect the figure of the 

 avocet at page 225 of the first series movving an imaginary swarth on 

 the smooth sand of the sea-shore. Well ! these curious and beautiful 

 birds, now so scarce with us and so highly prized by the collector, 

 once abounded in Norfolk, and might possibly do so again but for the 

 exterminating processes which Mr. Stevenson has described; only 

 think of stockings filled with the eggs of avocets ! only think of 

 their destination, "puddings and pancakes"! only think of 

 slaughtering ten or twelve avocels at a shot ! 



" I have conversed " says Mr. Stevenson, " with an octogenarian fowler 

 and marshmau named Piggott, who remembered the ' clinkers,' as the avocet 

 was there called, breeding in the marshes ' by hundreds,' and used constantly 

 to gather their eggs. Mr. Dowell, also, was informed by the late Harry 

 Overton, a welldinown gunner in that neighbourhood, that in his young 

 time he used to gather the avocet's eggs, filliug his cap, coat-pockets and 

 even his stockings ; and the poor people thereabouts made puddings and 

 pancakes of them. The birds were also as recklessly destroyed, for the 

 gunners, to unload their punt-guns, would sometimes fire at and kill ten or 

 twelve at a shot. No wonder then, if the avocets thus constantly persecuted 

 gradually became scarce." — P. ^40. 



Passing on to the wood sandpiper, which Mr. Stevenson informs 

 us is getting scarcer and scarcer in the county of Norfolk, I cannot 

 forbear quoting a liltle contribution to its biography from the 

 interesting pen of the " Old Bushman," now alas no more. " The 

 wood sandpiper" thus he writes "is very common here (Quickiock, 

 in Lapland) ; and far different are the quiet, unobtrusive habits of 

 this little bird during the breeding-season to the boisterous noisy 

 behaviour of its congener, the green sandpiper. Early in the 

 summer the wood sandpiper has a new, pretty little song, which it 

 trills out whilst seated on a tussock of grass or when rising in the 

 air in the vicinity of its nest. I have much oftener seen this bird 

 seated on a tree or a rail than the green sandpiper, although that 

 bird will occasionally perch." This reminds me of the long and 

 somewhat acrid controversy that was carried on some years back 

 both on the perching and singing of snipes, some writers feeling 



