NOTES FROM NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE. 1l 
Lincolnshire coast also, between Tetney and Skegness, numbers 
were shot on the same morning. It must have been a very bad 
passage for the birds, as they appear to have reached land in a 
thoroughly exhausted state; how many failed to do so we shall 
never know. Mr. Clarke writes, “A large codfish was taken at 
Spurn on the 30th, which when opened was found to contain an 
entire Woodcock.” 
I saw the first Short-eared Owl in the marshes on the 30th 
October; twelve were seen at Spurn on the same day. A beautiful 
variety, shot by Mr. Clarke, had the tawny ground colour of the 
typical bird represented by almost pure white: it was a male. 
I have not seen a single Gold-crested Wren on the Lincolnshire 
coast during the autumn. Mr. Clarke says on the Yorkshire 
side the only three seen this season were in a garden at Kilnsea, 
on the 25th and 29th October. 
All the Turdide have been remarkably scarce, more par- 
ticularly the Blackbirds; the hundreds which usually at this 
season appear suddenly in the marsh hedgerows have only been 
represented by a few dozen. Speaking of Blackbirds at Spurn on 
October 30th, Mr. Clarke says, “ Arriving singly, quite done up; 
they would sit at your feet among the bents and simply look up 
at you.” Blackbirds on their first arrival will drop in the first 
shelter or hedgerow they find; but, like all other migrants, 
they are soon off again; to see them we must be near the coast 
soon after daylight. In some years the numbers I have seen ~ 
at early morning in a single hedgerow have fairly astonished 
me. Many a morning, in former years, can I recall, foggy and 
still, yet in a few hours changing to one of those lovely cloudless 
latter autumn days, neither too hot nor too cold, when all Nature 
seems preparing for the sleep of winter. At the early hour we 
are out, however, the mist conceals nearly everything except the 
nearest hedgerows — hedgerows never more beautiful than at 
present, unless we choose to except a few brief days in the later 
spring, when they become rolling waves of bloom, above the green 
level of the marsh, white from base to crest with the sweet-scented 
“May” blossom. Now each lingering leaf is gay with autumn 
tints, running through many shades of yellow, brown and scarlet. 
The heavy dew has condensed in crystal drops on each point of 
vantage, and the dripping clusters of haws glisten like so many 
carcanets of coral. ‘Turning through the hand-gate into the 
