122 
CHARADEIID^. 
made by Mr. Yarrell, in reference to Great Britain and Ireland/^ 
that it is “ not so plentiful as the dunlin, gives no idea of the 
relative numbers of the two species. In BeKast and Strangford 
loughs there are fully two thousand dunlins to a single sander- 
ling, and on the coast of Ireland generally there may probably be 
one thousand of the former to each individual of the latter 
species. 
As the shores of Belfast bay present comparatively little sand, 
this bird is rarely to be seen there, except when passing to and 
from its breeding haunts.* 
On the 5th of May, 1832, a warm, sun-bright day, with blue 
sky overhead, I saw this species to much advantage, at the 
Kinnegar, near Holywood ; and particularly so, from my being on 
horseback, — our shore birds well knowing that an equestrian is less 
to be dreaded than a person on foot. It was high-water, so that 
the birds had been driven from tlieir feeding banks to the little 
gravelly promontories uncovered by the sea. Two birds of that 
most wary species the curlew, admitted my approach within thirty 
paces, and from within less than half the distance I reconnoitred 
a small hock of dunlins, ring dotterels, and sanderlings. To the 
unassisted eye, these last, in their grey attire, appeared like dun- 
lins in the winter, or piirre plumage ; but the season of the year 
indicated that this could not be. A pocket telescope being brought 
into requisition, that a dunhn and one of these birds might be 
viewed together, the back, wing-coverts, and hinder part of the 
neck of the latter, contrasted with those parts of the other, proved 
the species, by displaying the peculiar grey hue of the sanderhng. 
Several of these birds were then observed among the flock, which, 
composed of the three species, each so handsome, though differing 
much in the general tone of colour and disposition of markings, 
now appeared most attractive in full freshness of their new nup- 
tial attire. As they were all perfectly motionless, some sitting, 
of the habits of the sanderling is admirable. Audubon, in his Ornithological Bio- 
graphy (vol. iii. p. 231), treats inore fully, and in a very interesting manner, of the 
species. 
* January 8, 1831, a sanderling was shot in Belfast bay. 
