122 charadriidjE. 



made by Mr. Yarrell, in reference to " Great Britain and Ireland/' 

 that it is ' ' not so plentiful " as the dunlin, gives no idea of the 

 relative numbers of the two species. In Belfast and Strangford 

 loughs there are fully two thousand dunlins to a single sander- 

 ling, and on the coast of Ireland generally there may probably be 

 one thousand of the former to each individual of the latter 

 species. 



As the shores of Belfast bay present comparatively little sand, 

 this bird is rarely to be seen there, except when passing to and 

 from its breeding haunts.* 



On the 5th of May, 1832, a warm, sun-bright day, with blue 

 sky overhead, I saw this species to much advantage, at the 

 Kinnegar, near Holywood ; and particularly so, from my being on 

 horseback, — our shore birds well knowing that an equestrian is less 

 to be dreaded than a person on foot. It was high- water, so that 

 the birds had been driven from their feeding banks to the little 

 gravelly promontories uncovered by the sea. Two birds of that 

 most wary species the curlew, admitted my approach within thirty 

 paces, and from within less than half the distance I reconnoitred 

 a small flock of dunlins, ring dotterels, and sanderlings. To the 

 unassisted eye, these last, in their grey attire, appeared like dun- 

 lins in the winter, or purre plumage ; but the season of the year 

 indicated that this could not be. A pocket telescope being brought 

 into requisition, that a dunlin and one of these birds might be 

 viewed together, the back, wing-coverts, and hinder part of the 

 neck of the latter, contrasted with those parts of the other, proved 

 the species, by displaying the peculiar grey hue of the sanderling. 

 Several of these birds were then observed among the flock, which, 

 composed of the three species, each so handsome, though differing 

 much in the general tone of colour and disposition of markings, 

 now appeared most attractive in full freshness of their new nup- 

 tial attire. As they were all ^perfectly motionless, some sitting, 



of the habits of the sanderling is admirable. Audubon, in his Ornithological Bio- 

 graphy (vol. iii. p. 231), treats more fully, and in a very interesting manner, of the 

 species. 



* January 8, 1831, a sanderling was shot in Belfast bay. 



