203 
SOME STRAY NOTES FROM THE 
YORKSHIRE COAST IN THE SPRING OF 1893. 
JOHN CORDEAUX, M.B.O.U., 
Eaton Hall, Retford. 
In ‘The Naturalist’ for Avilh 1893, p. 105, in my notes on the 
migratory flocks of purple-headed Starlings, seen near the coast in 
Holderness in February, I omitted to state that the eight shot on 
February 25th from one flock were all males, and that six shot from 
another flock on March 19th were females. This is suggestive of 
the separation of the sexes at the period of migration. 
In the first week in March I was shown two Ruffs (Machetes 
pugnax) taken in a plover-net near Tetney, which had already partly 
got the nuptial plumage. When at Flamborough in May, I saw at 
the house of a fisherman a Crane (Grus communis) shot by Mr. John 
Huddleston, farmer, of that place, from a field near his house in the 
last week in February 1892. This had been skinned and set up by 
the late Mr. Jones, of Bridlington. It is, I think, a young bird of 
the previous year, and has oe and no red patch on the crown, 
and the hind plumes are shor 
Two Avocets Reuroasid avocetta) were seen some days to 
haunt a pond near the lighthouse at Flamborough during the last 
week of April. It appears from a paragraph, by Mr. Boyes, which 
appeared in ‘ The Field’ of May 27th, that one of these, a female, 
was shot—a most regrettable circumstance, as it is not improbable 
the birds would have remained in the district. 
One Black Redstart and two Pied Flycatchers (AZuscicapa atri- 
capilla) had been seen early in May. I saw two adult males of 
£. titys which had been captured in gardens at Flamborough in the 
Spring of 1891. It is not generally known that this species is 
almost a regular immigrant to the Headland in the spring and 
autumn, appearing earlier than the common species, and about 
a month later in the autumn. In the spring of 1891, as Mr. Bailey 
told me, many were seen; first, scores on April 6th, and again 
a great rush on May roth and rith. These seem to have been 
Spread over a considerable district in hedge-row and garden, along 
with Pied Flycatchers, Common Redstarts, and other small species. 
All the Black Redstarts observed were adult males; I do not think, 
however, that local observers ftps be able to agi gle between 
the females of the two specie 
On May rrth, Mr. Bailey and I, when at the seniohon Cliffs, 
Saw an adult male Lapland Bunting (Plectrophanes lapponicus) in 
ey, 
July 1893. 
