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Black-tailed Godwit ( Limosa melanura ) has been obtained on the 
Lincolnshire coast on various occasions from September to the end 
of the year. 
The Beeve ( ? Machetes pugnax ) is a regular autumn visitant to 
our north-east marshes, no year passing without examples being 
seen. On the 18th of August, 1878, I saw a flock of ten in the 
Humber marshes. Since the extraordinary immigration of the 
Curlew Sandpiper (Tringa subanjuata) in the north-east marshes 
in August, 1873, as recorded at the time in the ‘Zoologist’ for 
that year, I have only met with them solitary, or in small numbers, 
as an occasional autumn visitant. There is a small race or variety 
of the Dunlin (Tringa variabilis) frequenting this district (which 
must be considered only a local race or variety of that larger race, 
which in the autumn arrives on our coast in immense flocks from 
the North of Europe). The habits of this smaller Dunlin differ 
greatly from those of its congener, the latter remaining on the 
coast and rarely leaving it ; the former, however, I have observed 
often go far inland to their feeding grounds, partly cleared turnip 
fields on the “ wolds,” many miles from the coast. 
Our sea birds cannot be considered as coming within the range 
of our remarks, and it would unnecessarily prolong this paper 
to notice them. They must be considered cosmopolitan and 
common to the shores of the Eastern Counties alike. Many 
interesting and rare examples, in various states of plumage, have 
come under my notice since 1872. From my own experiences at 
sea in the spring and autumn, as well as the testimony of others, I 
am led to the conclusion, that species which ornithologists are apt 
to consider rare and exceptional visitants to our shores, as the 
Shearwater, Skuas, Northern Gulls, Fulmar, and Little Auk, with 
others, are very much more common than is generally supposed. 
They keep so far out to sea, and are so rarely obtained by 
collectors, that we arc unduly disposed to consider them much 
rarer visitants than is really the case. Sea-going ornithologists are 
few and far between, and from the very nature of things, we know 
much more of the comings and goings of our land and shore birds, 
than wo do of the dwellers on the great waters which wash our 
lone and sand-girt shores. 
