Birds. 2915 



one, probably the male bird, was in company with it at the time. — /. H. Gurney ; 

 Easton, Norfolk, August 7, 1850. 



Note on the Sanderling (Calidris arenaria). — On the sands of Boyndie, a little to 

 the west of Banff, four individuals, two males and two females, were shot by Mr. 

 Thomas Edward from a flock of sanderlings, on the 24th of May, 1850. There were 

 eleven in the flock altogether, and no other birds of a different species were in their 

 company. Attention was drawn to them by their cry ; and they allowed themselves 

 to be closely approached without manifesting any symptoms of alarm. They were 

 completely arrayed in what is appropriately called by Temminck the nuptial plumage. 

 The tints, on the males especially, were as rich and as fully developed as in the ruddy 

 Plover (Charadrius rubidus) of Wilson, with the description of which bird, as given 

 by that eloquent and accurate ornithologist, they agreed in every particular. The fer- 

 ruginous colour all over the plumage, with the exception of the belly, was strong and 

 vivid, and on the throat and breast was beautifully marked by black dots rather than 

 by streaks and blotches. The plumage of the females was a chaste and highly pleasing 

 mixture of hoary, black, and ferruginous. In both the latter was a collection of eggs, 

 each of them as big as the head of a pin. It is believed that it is not usual to meet 

 with the sanderling at so late a period of the breeding season on any portion of the 

 British coast. In its habits, it is not nearly so shy as the ring dotterel {Charadrius 

 Hiaticula), with which it is very frequently found associated, especially on its arrival 

 from its polar migration towards the end of the year, and during the continuance of 

 winter. As it is feeding, it has a hobbling and a pattering motion : it keeps daubing 

 with its bill in the sand at every step which it takes ; whereas the ring dotterel or sand 

 lark, having given one daub, runs on for a few yards or so before making another. 

 When not feeding, the sanderling sits with its neck drawn in : it does not at any time 

 run so quickly and nimbly as the ring dotterel. When a flock of them is associated 

 and mixed with one of ring dotterels, and when the united body is disturbed and takes 

 wing, if only a single sanderling should remain unmoved, and should, a little after, 

 utter his well-known cry of curwillie, the other sanderlings on hearing it will immedi- 

 ately and without any exception fly back to their friend, and to the place from which 

 they were aroused ; but will not, on such an occasion, be accompanied by any of the 

 ring dotterels, however many, which at first took flight along with them. These par- 

 ticulars I have not seen mentioned in the writings of systematic authors ; and it can- 

 not indeed be denied that our knowledge of the habits of those birds, by which the 

 sands of our sea-shore are enlivened, is extremely meagre, vague and unsatisfactory. 

 If your numerous correspondents, who record in the 'Zoologist' the occurrence and 

 death of specimens of the Tringae, Totani, &c, would study their habits for a period, 

 however brief, before pulling the fatal trigger, and would transmit the particulars thus 

 acquired for insertion in your pages, it cannot be doubted that a store of interest- 

 ing facts would speedily be accumulated, of which, at present, we are altogether in 

 ignorance. — James Smith ; Manse of Monquhitter, Aberdeenshire, August 7, 1850. 



Occurrence of the Caspian Tern (Sterna caspia) near Yarmouth. — An adult speci- 

 men of the Caspian Tern was shot at Breydon, near Yarmouth, on the 16th instant. 

 I have been unable to learn the sex, which was probably not observed. It is said 

 that one or two other specimens of the same species have lately been seen in the same 

 locality. — /. H. Gurney ; Easton, Norfolk, July 29, 1850. 



