BIRDS 401 



but, caring much for their company and little for their carcases, 

 I laid down my gun and took out my note-book. It was a 

 breezy day, and the birds desired to rest in shelter on a broken 

 portion of the marsh, which is one difficult of access with 

 ordinary tides. So they enjoyed their security, and ran over 

 the turf, or poised gracefully upon protuberant hillocks. Now 

 and then a single bird left his companions to fly noisily up and 

 down the estuary, first shooting up to a surprising height, and 

 then circling round a wide area, sporting merrily in the fitful 

 sunshine, in which his white underparts gleamed with a silvery 

 glance. In a little while this bird descended to rejoin his com- 

 panions, and they continued their restless manoeuvres, filling the 

 air with the babel of their choruses. It is really astonishing what 

 a volume of sound can be produced by a party of nine Green- 

 shanks all calling simultaneously. But, alas ! that party of nine 

 was reduced in a few days to two or three birds, which took their 

 departure before the October gales began to blow boisterously. 



A few birds linger into October. I have known them shot 

 in December ; but the Greenshank rarely seeks to winter with 

 us. Mr. R. Warren has described in the Zoologist the wintering 

 of the Greenshank on the north-west coast of Ireland ; but there 

 presumably the climate is milder than here, and the Greenshank, 

 as described by that gentleman, is more plentiful than with us. 

 Strange to say, though so well known as a spring visitant to the 

 south of England, the Greenshank is rarely seen with us in May. 

 The late Mr. T. C. Heysham never met with the Greenshank on 

 the Solway in the spring of the year. I have seen a pair on 

 Burgh marsh at the end of April, and in 1890 a single bird was 

 observed near Silloth up to May 25, when it disappeared. But 

 there can be no reasonable doubt that the Greenshanks which 

 visit us in autumn from northern Europe, and escape a legion of 

 gunners — for nearly every fisherman has a gun — return in spring 

 to their breeding-grounds by some route lying to the south of 

 the Solway. Perhaps a dozen Greenshanks may be killed on the 

 English side of the Firth in an autumn, but I hardly think more. 



The Greenshank is virtually unknown upon the more exposed 

 portions of our coast, nor does it seem to occur in any numbers 

 upon the Duddon or the Kent. Mr. Murray considers that it 



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