Letters on ornithology. 63 



much interest. I enclosed them in a letter to you, but do not 

 remember whether I posted the letter myself or not. 



I now enclose copy of some more notes by him. Last 

 September I sailed to the Deben Kiver, took him with me, and 

 stopped there a few days ; then came away, leaving him there, 

 before many migrant birds came. The Godwits (two) were on 

 the mud near my boat. My man took him in a punt to them; 

 they were very tame : he waited till they walked together, 

 and shot both with one barrel of a small gun. I watched them 

 with a telescope, and saw one pull a reddish worm out of the 

 mud, take it to the edge of the water, wash, and swallow it. 

 As the bird's bill pointed straight to me, I could not see whether 

 its action in eating the worm was the same as the Snipe's. I 

 shot the Plover and Knot next day out of a flock of about twelve, 

 mostly Plover. One Godwit was with them. There were very 

 few birds there of this class. I think there is a mistake in the 

 date of the Grey Geese ; if I remember rightly they were seen 

 on the 23rd. 



The earliest Brent Geese I could hear of last autumn, on the 

 Essex coast, were seen or heard about Oct. 8th or 9th. When I 

 sailed into the Deben Eiver, about Sept. 20th last, I asked a pilot 

 whether any wildfowl had been seen ; he said that he had 

 seen a "Black Goose" a day or two before. A fisherman who 

 lives there, named Frost, does some shooting, and is well ac- 

 quainted with birds. Soon after I told this man what tho pilot 

 had said, and asked him whether he believed it ; he said at 

 once, No, — that he had seen the bird himself, and that it was a 

 Cormorant. 



I have little doubt that a similar mistake was made in the 

 Report from the * Cortin ' light-vessel, of Black Geese in July, 

 some three years back I think. Black Geese are well known 

 about the mouth of the Deben, as they frequent that part of the 

 coast, feeding on the drift-weed, Zostera (their only food on this 

 coast), between the Orwell and Stour Rivers, the mouths of which 

 are at Harwich, close by. I sailed to Lowestoft last summer, and 

 think that the Brent Geese are very unlikely to frequent that 

 part of the coast, as there is nothing for them to eat there ; and 

 Cormorants are likely to be passing in July— they are abundant 

 on the Essex coast by August 1st. 



A report I had of a Woodcock settling in a tree looks 



