FIELD NOTES FROM NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE. 247 



the day. Dunlin and Ringed Plover were scattered all over the 

 foreshore ; the latter had much increased during the week. About 

 the usual number of Curlew, Whimbrel, and Grey Plover, also a 

 few Turnstone. This was the day on which Pallas's Sand Grouse, 

 Syrrhaptes paradoxus, arrived at Flamborough and the Spurn ; 

 one, a fine male, was obtained at Irby, six miles S.W. of 

 Grimsby,* at the same date ; and another, also a male, shot from 

 four on Swallow wold, near Caistor, on the 22nd. About seventy 

 were seen in the Spurn district between the 18th and 26th. 



May 19th. — S., warm. Saw a second "trip" of Dotterel, 

 numbering ten birds, in the same field as before — a bare sheep- 

 pasture; they were somewhat scattered, but on my driving 

 slowly round, and gradually contracting the distance, they drew 

 together, the outside bird of the group being within easy cast 

 of an ordinary trout-rod from where I sat. Now one and then 

 another would elevate a wing till the point was perpendicular to 

 the body, suggestive of a man stretching his arm above his head ; 

 they also gave utterance to some low subdued notes, quite a 

 pretty musical trill, and only audible at a short distance, and 

 altogether distinct from their ordinary flight-call. On the fore- 

 shore of the Humber were nearly the same species as yesterday, 

 excluding Whimbrel, and with the addition of some Redshanks. 

 There were three Nightingales singing this evening within a short 

 walk of the house. 



May 21st. — E., moderate. Saw the Dotterel once more in 

 their old quarters (but not after this date) ; and not a wader of 

 any description, even a solitary Dunlin, was to be seen on the 

 two miles of foreshore, where they had been so exceedingly 

 plentiful on the 19th. 



May 22nd. — There is a Kestrel sitting in the old nest of a 

 Carrion Crow, placed in a solitary thorn which overhangs a drain 

 in the marsh. The nest is not more than eight feet above the 

 level of the land. A pair nested last year exactly in a similar 

 situation in the same locality. 



May 21th. — N., very cold. Dunlin and Ringed Plover in 

 some numbers on the foreshore, and about a dozen Grey Plover 

 in summer plumage. 



* This, I subsequently found, was one of the three shot from a small 

 flock of five by a boy employed in tenting birds on the wold. I obtained it 

 by the merest accident, the other two having been plucked and eaten. 



