KNOT 223 
later into summer, and even suspected to have bred in some 
of the islands. 
Breeding in Faroe, Iceland, and other northern lands, the 
Purple Sandpiper is well distributed, but local, and not 
numerous, on the British coasts. 
TRINGA CANUTUS, Linn. KNOT. 
It is strange that this species, which occurs locally, but 
in places very abundantly on the surrounding coasts, is 
almost unknown in Man. Though mud-flats and estuaries, 
such as it prefers, are scarcely to be found, it must surely 
be more frequent, at least as a straggler, than our present 
information would imply. About New Year 1900 a speci- 
men shot in Castletown Bay (where, as Mr. Baily tells me, 
the species had also previously been obtained by him) 
passed into the hands of Mr. Adams, and on 22nd August 
1903 I observed two birds in the same locality, the only 
individuals of this species I have ever seen alive in Man. 
The shore frequented by them consists of a succession of 
low limestone reefs, partly bare, partly covered with wrack, 
just reached by high tides, which have filled the hollows 
between them with water, forming shallow pools fouled by 
decaying weed, which was also abundantly strewn over the 
neighbouring sands and shingle beaches, and formed the 
feeding ground of many Ringed Plovers and Dunlins, all, 
together with the Knots, extremely tame. The Knots 
moved among the pools and weed, when nearly approached 
edging away by rapid running, and sometimes requiring 
rather an effort on my part to make them take wing. They 
frequently uttered a low, peculiar, and very characteristic 
