BIRDS 403 



usual haunts, but the circumstance is unusual, although I have 

 occasionally examined Godwits that Greenwood had shot on the 

 Esk between the point of Kockliffe marsh and Gretna. These 

 birds arrive on the sands of the Solway Firth very numerously 

 in August, but especially in September, the young being 

 occasionally accompanied by a few old birds in summer dress. 

 These last are always very wild. The young birds, on the 

 other hand, are at first tame and confiding, so that an indifferent 

 marksman can often get two shots at the same bird. The 

 misfortunes of those that get ' pricked ' soon teach the survivors 

 caution. They feed on the scars of mussels, especially between 

 Silloth and Allonby, but a large proportion of their food is 

 obtained from the sand, in which they bore deeply or super- 

 ficially according to the state of the tide. As the surface of 

 the estuary dries, when the tide ebbs, their prey descends into 

 the sand, consequently the birds find it necessary to bore deep ; 

 but when there is water on the surface of the sand, their prey 

 is only just covered, hence the necessity for the birds boring 

 deep is obviated. The late Sir W. Jardine wrote regarding 

 this Godwit : ' The merse at Skinburness and banks of the 

 Wampoole on the Solway are localities where we have never 

 missed parties of them in the end of August and in September.' 

 Mr. C. M. Adamson likewise shot Godwits in these localities — 

 in the ' forties ' — concerning which experiences he says : ' I did 

 not observe them there in such flocks as come to the Northumber- 

 land coast at this season.' Perhaps not, or perhaps the number of 

 Godwits varies (as I believe it to do) in different years. Mr. 

 Nicol, when engaged in trawling, has observed flocks of newly- 

 arrived Godwits, very wild, as early as the middle of July, and 

 some of these were in breeding plumage. He has observed 

 others which spent the summer on our coast without assuming 

 a single red feather, and these were birds of the previous year. 

 This Godwit chiefly associates with its own kind, as any one 

 may ascertain by walking over the sands of the Wampool and 

 Waver, or visiting the mussel-beds opposite Beckfoot in the 

 month of September. They feed to some extent in the larger 

 creeks, but prefer on the whole to run hither and thither 

 over the sands, scattered in twos and threes, daintily probing 



