THE REDSHANK. 203 



considerable variety in the nature of the estuaries and loughs of 

 Antrim and Down, Dublin Bay, Wexford and Cork harbours, 

 the bays of Kerry and Connemara, &c., which all exhibit the 

 species in very great numbers. Even to the low and jagged rocky 

 shore, when exposed by the fallen tide, these birds are partial, — 

 minute Crustacea, and other objects which constitute their food, 

 being plentiful in such places. Although large flocks have not been 

 observed by the shooters to feed by night, small numbers have 

 occasionally been seen to do so. The examination of the contents 

 of the stomach of several redshanks, killed at different times in 

 autumn and winter, in Belfast Bay, proved that small Crustacea 

 constitute their chief food : some shrimps, of tolerably large size, 

 were observed in them ; one stomach, on being cut into, was so 

 filled with crustacean remains as to give forth strongly the per- 

 fume of boiled crab or lobster. A few minute univalve shells, as 

 Lacuna quadrifasciata, &c, had also been picked up. 



This species appears in flocks in Belfast Bay early after the breed- 

 ing season : on the 18th of July the young birds have been shot, 

 'and occasionally, though rarely, great numbers have arrived before 

 the end of the month. From this period, or the middle of 

 August, until late in spring — on the 1st of May, 1849, a flock of 

 about a hundred was seen — they remain without any diminution of 

 their numbers, except what may be killed, and they are too wary 

 to admit of any great sacrifice in this manner, at least with the 

 ordinary gun. The most I have heard of being killed with it 

 at one shot were twenty-five, along with winch a greenshank and 

 two ash-coloured sandpipers fell. But the swivel-gun sometimes 

 makes awful havoc among them. As noticed under the last species, 

 1 08 were killed at one shot early in September 1846, and a day or 

 two previously 112 fell at a single discharge. I have often, like 

 my correspondent, Mr. Poole, observed that the redshank appears 

 to sympathize very much with wounded companions. " A flock 

 (to use his words) out of which I shot four this morning, 

 as soon as they perceived their brethren strewed upon the water, 

 wheeled round towards them repeatedly, uttering the most 

 piercing and vociferous cries, and seeming determined to lend 



