NOTES AND QUERIES. 393 



Greenshank and Ruff in Cheshire. — On Aug. 27th a Greenshank 

 and a Buff were feeding on a wide expanse of mud at Bosley Reservoir, 

 near Macclesfield. The association of the two large birds was not 

 very close, for during a couple of hours I spent at the place each flew 

 with a flock of Lapwings, and wheu I disturbed them, as I did several 

 times, they sometimes flew together, and sometimes went diverse ways, 

 but sooner or later they always returned to one part of the reservoir, 

 where there was much shallow water, and apparently food in abund- 

 ance. The Ruff uttered no note, but the Greenshank was very noisy 

 whenever I put it up, calling with a loud, hard, disyllabic cry ; in 

 flight its tail-feathers were fanned out, and its white rump very con- 

 spicuous. When feeding it ran quickly in a series of short rushes 

 through the shallow water, sometimes belly-deep, with its bill partly 

 submerged and, I think, slightly open. Its quarry was the fry of 

 some fish which leaped in a flashing shoal from the water in front of 

 it, as though a Pike had rushed among them. These it hunted to 

 some purpose, catching a fish at nearly every rush it made. The 

 Ruff's mode of feeding was altogether different ; whether on the mud 

 or in the shallow water it walked deliberately, probing the mud with 

 its bill. When at rest its pose was markedly erect compared with that 

 of two Common Saudpipers which were standing near it. It was 

 obviously a male, being not much smaller than the Greenshank, and 

 appeared to be a bird in first plumage ; its legs were lead colour, bill 

 dark brown, feathers of the mantle brown with pale edges, crown 

 rather darker than the forehead and hind neck ; above and behind the 

 eye was an obscure pale mark ; the under parts were white, washed 

 with pale warm buff on fore neck and sides of breast ; rump and 

 rectrices brown. — Charles Oldham (Knutsford). 



Black Tern (Hydrochelidon nigra) in Cheshire. — On Aug. 19th 

 Mr. T. A. Coward and I watched a Black Tern hawking up and down 

 the mere at Great Budworth. It was a young bird, having brown 

 feathers with pale margins on the mantle, and a broad black band on 

 the carpus. A week later — on Aug. 26th — we saw another at the 

 same place, apparently a bird in the plumage of the second autumn ; 

 no brown on the mantle, which was frosty grey, the black band on the 

 carpus was smaller, and the legs pale reddish brown, not black as in 

 the younger bird. — Charles Oldham (Knutsford). 



The Black Tern (Hydrochelidon nigra) near Ringwood.— As a class 

 the Terns are of somewhat irregular occurrence in tins particular 

 locality, none, as far as I know, nesting in the county ; but in the 

 autumn — and more rarely in the spring — several species, especially the 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. IX., October, 1905. 2 H 



