In the Neighbourhood oj Salisbury. 



237 



killed one (with a Reeve) , in nearly perfect summer plumage, on 

 August 11th, 1879, in the harbour. The only time I ever came 

 across them personally was on the North Curry Moor, near Taunton. 

 The moor had been flooded all the summer, the hay actually rotting 

 in the swath ; and having been told that there were all kinds of 

 birds on the moor, from the Hooper to the Dunlin, I sallied out 

 one evening to try my luck. I started, however, too late, and the 

 miasma and stench from the decaying vegetable matter was so great, 

 that I tied a muffler round my mouth, and returned. The next 

 morning, however, I sallied forth again ; and after walking some 

 distance, and seeing nothing, my eye at last alighted on a large 

 flock of common Plover, which — from want of some better object of 

 attraction — I determined to stalk. I soon got knee-deep in the 

 water, not knowing the mode of irrigation in those moors, and just 

 as I was thinking of returning, the effort necessary not seeming worth 

 the cost, my eye rested on a brown bird amongst the Plovers, and my 

 energies, at once returned. They were very tame, and let me ap- 

 proach them in the open ; and as they rose, keeping my eye well on 

 the brown bird, I let fly, and not only knocked him over, but also 

 a second bird of the same species, which I had not previously noticed, 

 while immediately after I detected a third on a tussock of grass, 

 which was peering above the water, which I also secured. They 

 were the young birds of the year, and so totally unlike the full-robed 

 male that at first I had no notion what they were. 



Tringa Canutus. " The Knot." This is one of the birds, like the 

 Bar- tailed God wit and others, whose summer plumage so entirely 

 differs from the winter dress that you would scarcely recognize them 

 as being of the same species, the winter plumage being of a uniform 

 grey tint, while that of the summer is reddish-brown. They are 

 occasionally to be met with at Christchurch and Poole. On May 

 18th, 18M), Hart observed a small cluster of these birds in the 

 harbour, in full summer dress ; and he tells me he has more than 

 once shot them with the eggs fully developed, and the yolk quite 

 formed, so that they must have been within a few days of laying; 

 and yet they are never supposed to breed in any more southerly 

 district than the Arctic regions. In the recent voyage of the Alert 



VOL. XXI.— NO. LXII. R 



