ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM RYE. 409 



Dunlin on the shore are considerably augmented. They frequent 

 spots where the sand is of a muddy nature, retiring at high tide 

 to the stretches of sea-pink near the harbour, and to brackish 

 pools. Many of these Dunlin are still far from completing their 

 moult. Large numbers of Linnets invade the poor pieces of land 

 near the coast. The majority are young birds in a moulting 

 condition, the breasts of many being marked with the chocolate 

 colour of first youth. 



Aug. 26th. Light westerly wind, fine. Three immature Green- 

 shanks were obtained at the harbour to-day, and a pair of Wood 

 Sandpipers (Totanus glareola), along one of the dykes. The 

 occurrence of the last-named species, locally known as " Autumn 

 Snipe," is very irregular. The course of their migration seems 

 hardly to touch this part of the coast. During the autumn one 

 or two stragglers are the most that appear along the dykes. As 

 opposed to "Autumn Snipe," the Common Snipe is known here 

 as " Full Snipe." 



Aug. 27th. North-westerly wind, fair. At eight o'clock this 

 morning two fine male Ruffs were shot on a small reed-girt pond. 

 When first seen they were making in a south-westerly direction. 

 Two large flocks of Sanderlings (Calidris arenaria) have arrived 

 on the shore. Next to the Dunlins they are by far the most 

 numerous of the shore birds here. Like the Purple Sandpiper, 

 these birds choose rather as a time for feeding when the tide is 

 coming in. At such times they are to be seen racing along the 

 edge of the incoming water, making it often very hard to gain on 

 them and difficult to distinguish them from the fragments of the 

 swift- sliding surf through which they pursue their way. For the 

 first time this autumn I flushed to-day from a small reed-bed 

 three Green Sandpipers (Totanus ochropus). These birds on 

 migration fly at a considerable altitude, pitching almost vertically 

 down to their feeding-grounds, when towards sunset they become 

 very noisy with their sharp " wheet-wheet, wheet-wheet" cries. 

 Sheltered ditches whose banks are bordered with mud and rushes 

 are now favourite resorts. The same kind of spots are also visited 

 by the Wood Sandpiper. The reed-beds are full of young Reed 

 and Sedge Warblers, as well as Reed Buntings, the majority of 

 the latter adults, the males being in a state of losing the black on 

 head and throat. This motley crew flitted low in front of me, 

 the Reed Buntings making with their slender long-shaped bodies 



