204 
SCOLOPACIDiE. 
every assistance in their power/^ When the flowing tide puts 
them off their feeding-ground, rather than be driven within shot 
of any ambush on the shore, they adopt the curlew^s custom — - 
as particularly detailed in treating of that species — of retiring to 
rocky marine islets, several miles distant, about the entrance of 
the bay. Thither they follow the “ flights of that cautious bird ; 
stationed a little apart from which, I have seen several hundreds 
congregated, patiently awaiting the falling of the tide. When 
much disturbed, at such times, they likewise betake themselves to 
the comparative solitude of Strangford Lough. To see a flock of 
not less than a thousand spring direct from the beach high into 
the air until they attain the elevation of the intervening range of 
hills which have to be crossed, and then, in rapid flight, bear 
straight onwards to Strangford, is an interesting and beautiful 
sight. During a few years of late, these flights were taken less 
frequently than before, the birds having discovered a tract of 
good feeding-ground, about two miles in length, on the Antrim 
side of the bay, bounded by a public road, which rendered it a 
kind of preserve, as no shooting was permitted. They remained 
there daily in great numbers, about the time of high water, for 
eight months of the year. A railway embankment has since been 
thrown up between the sea and this tract, and corn now waves 
over a considerable portion of it, where the redshanks and allied 
species so lately appeared in countless myriads. When spring- 
tides encroach on their territory, it is interesting to see them 
flocked on little floating masses of Zoster a. To keep their 
enemies at a respectful distance, they wdll sometimes alight in 
water of such a depth that the entire legs are concealed and the 
under plumage wetted. It was comical, on one occasion, to see 
a redshank resting for a time on the top of a single plant of the 
bladder sea- wrack {Fucus vesiculosus) , which rose to the surface 
from deep-water, and did not yield beneath the bird^s weight. 
Ledshanks are well known to dive when wounded. They 
have frequently been observed in Belfast Bay, when feeding and 
getting gradually into water too deep for wading, to swim across 
where the distance was short, rather than rise and fly. They 
