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XXIX. 
NOTES ON BIRDS OBSERVED IN HERTFORDSHIRE DURING 
THE YEAR 1904 . 
By William Bickerton. 
Bead at Watford , 12 th April, 1905 . 
In my last report I was able to add two additional species to tbe 
list of Hertfordshire birds, thus bringing the total to 221. Thanks 
to information supplied by the Hon. Walter Rothschild, M.P., I am 
enabled to add two more to the list to-night—the curlew sand¬ 
piper (Tringa subarquata) and the knot (Tringa canutus), several 
specimens of each of these birds having been seen, and one specimen 
of each shot, at the Wilstone Reservoir on September 15th, 1904. 
Of the 223 birds now on our County List, 42 (including the two 
species added to-night) have been recorded once only for Hertford¬ 
shire, while 78 of the 223 have been recorded on less than five 
occasions. 
In accordance with the usual custom, I will give a few particulars 
of the two new-comers. 
1. The Curlew Sandpiper or Pygmy Curlew (Tringa sub¬ 
arquata ).—This is one of the birds which only visit the British Isles 
in spring while on their yearly wanderings to their summer breeding- 
haunts, and in autumn on the return journey therefrom. It is 
much more frequently found on the estuaries of the east coast than 
on those of our western shores, and the principal influx, mostly 
of young birds, takes plaoe in August and September. The birds 
seem to rest for a variable period (sometimes even for three or four 
months) in our Islands before resuming their journey south. 
Down to so recent a period as eight years ago, the nest and eggs 
of this bird were absolutely unknown to ornithologists, the first 
having been found on July 3rd, 1897, near the mouth of the 
Yenisei, away on the shores of Northern Siberia. This is probably 
its nearest nesting-ground to us, this river forming its western 
breeding limit. 
When the breeding season is over it returns from these high 
northern latitudes, and it is during such return journeys, as already 
stated, that it appears in the British Isles. Its journeys are 
continued south for enormous distances, its winter quarters being 
found in Cape Colony, in Australia, and even in Tasmania. It is 
almost an unknown bird in Northern America, and it does not 
appear to even visit the Arctic portions of that continent for 
nesting purposes. 
2. The Knot (Tringa canutus ). — This is a very near relation 
to the one just named, but, unlike the curlew sandpiper, when it 
comes to us in early autumn it remains with us in great numbers 
right through the winter until the following May, when it leaves 
for its breeding-grounds in the far north-west. Like its congener, 
it is much more partial to the sandbanks and mud-flats of the 
