38 A. C. CHAPMAN : BIRDS OF NORTHUMBERLAND COAST. 



enumerated, do not arrive here till well on in the autumn, though 

 I have a note of a Widgeon (Mareca penelope) shot on September 3rd, 

 probably a Scotch-bred bird. The end of September to the end of 

 October is certainly their normal time of arrival, and the Brent Geese 

 (Bernida brenta) do not arrive in their greatest numbers till January. 

 As soon as the various species arrive they usually select certain places, 

 the nature of which is best suited to their habits, each individual 

 class exhibiting a partiality for particular places, where they find food 

 or rest, according to their varying idiosyncracies. Thus, the Purple 

 Sandpiper is essentially a bird of the rocks ; I have never seen many 

 of them on the coast proper • they seem to prefer the black basaltic 

 rocks which form the Fame Islands, about four miles out to sea. 

 Here, on August 21st, 1874, we procured four of them, and I well 

 remember their extreme tameness on a cold winter's day, on the 

 Megstone Rock, in January, 1881. They like to run close down to 

 the water's edge, where the surf breaks white on the black basalt, and 

 here they find plenty of food, small marine insects and vegetable sub- 

 stances washed up by the tide. 



The Turnstone is also a rock-loving bird, and is rarely seen on 

 the sands proper, and never on the mud. I have frequently found 

 them in August, about the 24th, sitting on the heaps of decomposing 

 seaweed which line the high-water mark, where they feed on the 

 maggots of the sea-weed fly. I have shot them on the north shore of 

 Holy Island, year after year, almost exactly on the same spot, and 

 about the same day of the year. At this season nine out of ten seem 

 to be young birds of the year, in the brown dress. Such birds have 

 pale orange-coloured legs and feet ; the beak is dark brown, black at 

 the tip ; their backs have a pretty purple sheen, especially on the 

 scapulars; their eyes are nearly black. On August 22nd, 1S72, my 

 brother shot an old Turnstone in full red summer dress, with the 

 black and white head. The legs in the adult bird are much brighter 

 coloured than in the young. Both old and young have a fine clear 

 cry, which easily distinguishes the species long before they have been 

 seen. 



Whimbrels and Oystercatchers (Hosmatopus ostralegus) are also 

 rock-frequenting birds, though the former often go to feed on the 

 mudslakes, and the latter frequently assemble in immense flocks on 

 the extensive sand-flats left dry by the tide. On August 19th, 

 1885, I killed two Oystercatchers; both were hard-feathered, full-sized 

 birds, but one had pink or flesh-coloured legs and feet, and a red eye, 

 while the other had French-grey coloured legs and feet, and a hazel 

 eye and orbits. The beaks of both were red and hard, and I am 

 inclined to think that the apparently immature bird was at least one 



Naturalist, 



