THE REDSHANK. 
203 
considerable variety in the nature of the estuaries and loughs of 
Antrim and Down, Dublin Bay, Wexford and Cork harbours, 
the bays of Kerry and Connemara, &c., which all exhibit the 
speeies in very great numbers. Even to the low and jagged rocky 
shore, when exposed by the fallen tide, these birds are partial, — 
minute Crustacea, and other objects which constitute their food, 
being plentiful in such places. Although large flocks have not been 
observed by the shooters to feed by night, small numbers have 
occasionally been seen to do so. The examination of the contents 
of the stomach of several redshanks, killed at different times in 
autumn and winter, in Belfast Bay, proved that small Crustacea 
constitute their chief food : some sluimps, of tolerably large size, 
were observed in them ; one stomach, on being cut into, was so 
filled with crustacean remains as to give forth strongly the per- 
fume of boiled crab or lobster. A few minute univalve shells, as 
Lacuna quadrifasciata, &c., had also been picked up. 
This species appears in flocks in Belfast Bay early after the breed- 
ing season : on the 18th of July the young birds have been shot, 
and occasionally, though rarely, great nmnbers have arrived before 
the end of the month. Erom this period, or the middle of 
August, until late in spring — on the 1st of May, 1849, a flock of 
about a hundred was seen — they remain without any diminution of 
their numbers, except what may be killed, and they are too wary 
to admit of any great sacrifice in this manner, at least with the 
ordinary gun. The most I have heard of being killed with it 
at one shot were twenty-five, along with which a greenshank and 
two ash-coloured sandpipers fell. But the swivel-gun sometimes 
makes awful havoc among them. As noticed under the last species, 
108 were killed at one shot early in September 1846, and a day or 
two previously 112 fell at a single discharge. I have often, like 
my correspondent, Mr. Poole, observed that the redshank appears 
to sympathize very much with wounded companions. A flock 
(to use his words) out of which I shot four this morning, 
as soon as they perceived their brethren strewed upon the water, 
wheeled round towards them repeatedly, uttering the most 
piercing and vociferous cries, and seeming determined to lend 
