SPRING MIGRATION OF WADERS. 327 
Common Sandpiper was very plentiful along the coast-line during 
the third week in May, and large parties of them frequented for 
- some days the ponds and pools nearest the shore: all had left on 
the 20th. At Spurn, on the 25th, there were numerous waders, 
excepting the Dunlin, the Turnstone perhaps exceeding any other ; 
' these were, in some cases, in pairs, the male and female readily 
distinguishable, and also in small flocks, containing birds very 
much in the same plumage as the young of the year in the 
autumn, with others more advanced. It was very interesting to 
watch them foraging for food, tossing to and fro with the greatest 
rapidity the sea-tangle and tide-wreck. In some cases where 
the object was too large, the bird, first lifting it up with its bill, 
would then charge with its breast, and, regularly putting “shoulder 
to the wheel,” roll all over together. The little black-bellied 
Dunlin feeding in the tidal pools were equally active in the pursuit 
of food; I frequently noticed them probing sideways all round a 
stone, so that no small crustacean or annelid concealed beneath 
could have escaped their nerve-guided touch. The only Sander- 
lings seen were two or three runnng, as Sanderling only can run, 
over the sand at the tide-edge, and following the recoil so far that 
the return wave came within an ace of carrying them away, 
avoided only by a quick upward spring and short flight. These 
Sanderlings, although this was the end of May, had no signs of 
their summer plumage, nor had one or two Knots feeding in 
company with some Turnstone. Three Whimbrels and two Turn- 
stones in the same pool made a very pretty picture, the latter 
probing amongst the pebbles for shrimps and sandhoppers, the 
others on one stiff straight leg, the second tucked up to the belly, 
and their scythe-like bills bid away under the brown scapulars. 
Pleasant, too, it was to watch five Lesser Terns, a pair of Dunlins, 
and a Turnstone, all washing in the same pool and afterwards 
preening and drying themselves on the sands. Under shelter of 
the sandhills, with the glass poised in position, it seemed only 
necessary to stretch out a hand to touch them. 
Hot as was the sun-glare on the heated sands, yet a cool and 
rather brisk sea-breeze swept the dunes, otherwise it would have 
been no desirable task to walk the seventeen miles I did that day, 
not, however, without frequent halts, lying on my back amongst 
waving sea-grass and looking deep into a summer sky crossed 
with driftings of frailest cirri; then there was the sea ever booming 
