BIRDS 387 



KNOT. 



Tringa canutus, L. 



The Knot visits Morecambe Bay and the lower portion of 

 the Solway Firth in very large numbers, but is not often met 

 with on the more open portions of our coast, being in fact an 

 estuary -loving rather than a maritime species. I have ob- 

 served considerable numbers in Walney channel, and a good 

 many are netted by the Flookburgh fowlers, but it is on the 

 Solway Firth that I have chiefly studied the Knots which 

 come to Lakeland at the end of their short Arctic summer. A 

 few arrive in August. In 1888 the first muster of young birds 

 occurred on the 7th of September, when a large flock allowed 

 Mr. W. Nicol to approach within shot. On the 18th of that 

 month many hundreds lined the sea-beach at Bowness, just 

 when the sunset flooded the heights of Criffel across the tide- 

 way with a volume of soft light. These, when disturbed, only 

 wheeled en masse a few hundred yards across the sands. On 

 the 23d of October 1888 a friend and I visited Bowness just 

 as the tide began to ebb, and observed a few Knots which from 

 their tameness had evidently only just arrived. They ran in 

 twos and threes over the shingle at our feet, and my terrier 

 ran after them precisely as he would have chevied Sparrows 

 under similar circumstances. Some large flocks of Knots seen 

 the same day were as wild as hawks. When shooting on the coast 

 near Cardunock, on January 4, 1889, we came across a fine 

 assemblage of Knots. Crossing a field, we gained the shelter 

 of a hedge within 80 yards of the birds, which were running in 

 the shallows at the edge of the estuary. The tide was flowing 

 fast and soon disturbed a great flock of Oystercatchers, which 

 broke into two divisions that alighted on our right and left. 

 A dense flock of Knots then came flying up, and, after stooping 

 and rising once or twice, pitched in the vacant space between 

 the two bodies of Oystercatchers, and thus united the throng 

 of birds crowding the water-side into one dark multitude. We 

 waited twenty minutes, during which many small flocks of 

 Knots came flying restlessly up the water, the tide being one 

 of 24 feet. As the flowing waters encroached upon the land, 



