6762 



Birds. 



(Sterna anglica) in immature plumage. This specimen had the Dealt two-thirds of the 

 length of the head, and of a greenish black, short and rather conical in form ; the legs 

 were greenish black. The bird was the same size as a young bird of the common tern, 

 and its markings were not dissimilar to those of that species. A short time afterwards 

 1 saw another specimen of this tern which had been killed on our sands. This specimen 

 was an older bird, and had the beak longer than that of the first specimen, and the 

 angle on the lower mandible very prominent. Its back was a uniform French blue, 

 the nape of the neck black, crown of the head black, streaked thickly with white. Beak 

 and legs greenish black. A specimen of the little auk was picked up in the middle of 

 August on the sands. This was a young bird of the year, with the slate-coloured 

 cheeks characteristic of the immature state. Amongst large flocks of dunlin and ringed 

 plovers I have noticed the curlew sandpiper and sanderling, and of the former one 

 afternoon I noticed a very considerable number. On one or two occasions I noticed 

 the sanderling very numerous. This pretty little Tringa is by no means a regular 

 autumn visitant with us ; one September afternoon I had the rare fortune to see a 

 flock of the little ringed plover (Charadritis minor), and have since mounted a beautiful 

 specimen, which was killed out of the flock. I was pleased to find this rare and peaceful 

 little plover so distinct from the larger and common C. biaticula. Yarrell is, as usual 

 most happy in giving an accurate account of the distinctive peculiarities of each species. 

 There have been one or two flocks of the little stint with us this autumn, and I have 

 had some pretty specimens brought to me. When a single bird of this species is seen 

 on the sands he appears a ridiculous little pigmy, but his proportions become grander 

 when he rises on the wing, and the long tertiary feathers of the Tringse become notice- 

 able. The flight of these little fellows is very rapid, and in a zigzag, not unlike that 

 of a dunlin or jack snipe. They have a shrill cry, quite distinct from that of the other 

 Tringae which haunt the flats. Godwits and knots have been scarce this autumn ; of 

 the former we have not had so many as haunted our sands in May on their way north, 

 and in all the glories of their nuptial plumage. I was on the Braunton sands the 

 morning after a heavy gale towards the end of September, and found them strewn 

 with dead and dying razorbills and guillemots. For more than five miles the sands 

 were dotted in all directions with the white bodies of these birds, and the tide, which 

 was then running in, washed up the bodies of fresh victims each instant ; and not 

 only on the sands, but far out in mid channel lay the bodies of these birds, innumerable, 

 floating backwards and forwards on the waves, and puzzling the sailors of the passing 

 ships to account for their destruction. The destruction of life must have been immense. 

 If all the victims to sportsmen, and all those which have been devoured by the " cliff 

 hawks'' (Falco peregrinus), who have their eyries in one or two places among the breeding 

 stations of the guillemots ; if all these which have thus perished during the last century 

 were added together they would not represent one tithe of the birds which perished in 

 that fatal gale : and all these birds were drowned. It seems strange that birds whose 

 very home is on the bosom of the ocean should die thus, but nevertheless it is the fact. 

 As soon as ever the birds are drawn within the influence of the heavy surf they are 

 rolled over and over, and are at length tossed up dead or dying on the beach. The 

 storm falling on them while they are sickly from being in the midst of the great yearly 

 moult is the more fatal. But stranger than this is the number of dead kittiwakes one 

 sees on the sands after a heavy gale of wind at midsummer. These birds are entirely 

 surface feeders, and it seems a fair conjecture that after the waters had been violently 

 disturbed by a gale there would be more food for them on the surface than in calm 



