KNOT. 
233 
ciently long to attain its full breeding dress, and 
often returns with it only partially changed. It is 
by no means uncommon, though the range is not so 
extensive or general as the last ; but at times, and 
on some of our shores, it appears in flocks of very 
great numbers in the autumn and winter. After 
they have recovered from their migration, they are 
rather shy, and we have often found them difficult 
to be approached ; at other times, again, we have 
seen them almost regardless of danger ; and once, in 
September, when making a circuit of Holy Island, 
on the Northumbrian coast, we fell in with a large 
flock, in great part composed of the birds of that 
year, which allowed an approach within ten yards. 
They must have been newly arrived from their flight, 
for, even when disturbed by a shot, they would not 
remove more than from fifty to one hundred yards, 
alighting and crowding the tops of the insulated 
rocks. We procured many specimens with stones, 
and believe that the whole flock, consisting of seve- 
ral hundreds, might hare been shot. It occurs in 
a similar manner in Ireland. On the Continent, 
Mr. Yarrell states, he is unable to trace it farther 
eastward than France and Germany ; but it is found 
in Northern and Arctic Europe, in Northern and 
Arctic America, and we possess a single specimen 
from New Holland that appears in every way iden- 
tical. This specimen is either coming into, or re- 
moving from, the breeding state, being tinted with 
rufous beneath, and above having the light-grey 
plumage mixed with dark feathers. 
