308 SCOLOPACKLE. 



killed at night, when they apparently feed more than by day, both 

 in darkness and moonlight. Shooters are drawn to their vicinity 

 " in the dark of the moon," by their singular chucking call when 

 engaged feeding. A person, hearing the call of these birds one 

 very dark night in October, sought them with a lantern, holding 

 the light side towards them, when they admitted his approach 

 within a few feet, and did not take wing, but ran before the light 

 as he advanced. The following remarks on their call were made 

 by me : — "February 14, 1843.— Frosty weather; a number of knots 

 were feeding in the bay, close to the side of the road on the 

 Antrim shore ; the call is a double note, rather peculiar, perhaps 

 a little mournful : it sounded like ventriloquism, as if the birds 

 were in the air instead of on the ground. Could this have been 

 accidental, or owing to a particular state of the atmosphere ?" 



The flight of the knot is very swift and strong. On the 1st of 

 February, 1845, I noticed a large flock of from a thousand 

 to twelve hundred, sweeping over the banks on the Antrim side 

 of Belfast Bay, rising high into the air, and passing through 

 evolutions similar to those of the dunlin. The first time they 

 swept past, though at some distance, they actually startled me 

 by their silvery flash. It was within two hours of high-water, 

 and the atmosphere was in a most singular state. There was" 

 frost, and had been some for a few days previously; the sea- 

 banks, over which the tide flows, and that have usually a cold, 

 wet, muddy aspect, now appeared dry, as if baked, and of a rich 

 brown and dark-green colour. When the large body of knots 

 alighted, a great number of dunlins took their stand at one 

 extremity of the flock. They were nearly half a mile from the 

 road on which I was, a,nd as every individual of the many hun- 

 dreds was distinctly seen of a silvery whiteness running about 

 feeding on what appeared a rich green carpet of Zostera marina, 



St. John tells us that " there are very large flocks of the oyster-catcher, the curlew, 

 and the knot, on the sand-banks, &e. (of Morayshire, in April). Whenever these 

 birds want to alight on any spot, if the wind is at all high, they invariably pitch with 

 their heads straight to windward ; if they come down the wind to their resting-place, 

 they first fly past it, and then turning back against the wind, alight with their heads 

 in that direction." — 'Tour in Sutherland,' vol. i. p. 207. Although they do this, 

 they prefer to have the wind with them in their flights. 



