SPRING MIGRATION OF WADERS, 329 
over the tossing sea-wave! as we watch thy flight and mark thy 
perfect form, as if carved from the purest ivory, we are thankful 
that one of the most humane Acts ever passed by any Government, 
Whig or Tory, protects thy slight and sylph-like form from the 
pitiless and ever-destroying Philistine! Long mayst thou return 
to gladden our eyes in the pleasant spring time, and find a summer 
home on our shores! 
A pair or two of Sheldrakes breed not far from this part of the 
coast, fortunately on protected ground; and I was told of two 
pairs of Pintails which had remained late on April in a private 
pond. 
In the storm-beaten hedges on the cliffs, which, having small 
chance of growing upwards, expend all their energy in spreading 
landwards, were numerous small birds, the most frequent of 
which were the Common Bunting and Sedge Warbler. I also, 
amongst others, heard the Lesser Whitethroat—far less numerous 
than the common species, yet regularly occurring as a nester, 
and also passing through the district in some numbers, both in 
the spring and autumn. Subsequently, in Buckinghamshire, 
where it appears to be very common, I became thoroughly familiar 
with this little warbler. It haunts much the tops of high elms, 
and on sultry days its pleasing but somewhat monotonous song 
may be heard from early dawn till late in the day. I never heard 
it in the beech-woods, but everywhere else in tall and isolated 
clumps of trees and garden shrubberies. 
On May 27th the Grey Plover mustered in some numbers on 
the Humber foreshore, with black-bellied Dunlin and a flock of 
the pretty small race of Ringed Plover, the Charadrius inter- 
medius of Ménétriés. On June Ist, an intensely hot day, with 
the thermometer 95° in the sun, there were seven Grey Plover and 
three'Turnstones together near our sea-creek; of the former, one 
was a perfect old male in full plumage, five others were less 
advanced, and the last was in sober grey, with the under parts 
white, and showing no trace of any change to summer plumage; 
the Turnstones were in an advanced but not perfect plumage. 
This was the last of them, but on the 16th of June, near the 
same place, was a Whimbrel all alone on the steaming flat, and, 
as far as glass could search the foreshores of our muddy river, 
nothing else save a score or so of the Brown-headed Gull. 
2 &. 
