A HISTORY OF CORNWALL though several of them receive accessions during the winter, probably as the result of adverse weather elsewhere. The majority of our ducks are most abundant during frost, but in the average years wigeon are fairly common by v the close of the month, and the shoveler, scaup, and common scoter have all put in an appearance, the first-mentioned at times in considerable numbers. The red-breasted merganser, purple sandpiper, divers and great-crested grebe are generally reported before the beginning of November, as also are the hawfinch, snow-bunting and short-eared owl. The fire-crest has thrice been identified in October, but seems to arrive as a rule in November, or later, often in the company of gold-crests. The stone-curlew, for which bird Cornwall appears to be the northern winter limit, is rarely seen till November. Among the birds of passage the sanderling is still in evidence ; the wood- sandpiper is occasionally obtained, and the bar-tailed godwit often lingers on our mud flats till far into November ; the grey plover can generally be seen during the month on Marazion beach ; the grey phalaropc is rather uncertain in the time of its appearance, sometimes showing itself in the early part of September, in other years not recorded till the middle of November. Lapwings, golden plover, jack-snipe and full-snipe continue to arrive throughout the month of November, and stray bitterns are not infrequent. Severe weather in the winter months usually causes extensive invasion, and during a hard frost the Lizard and Land's End districts become the temporary refuge of an incredible number of redwings, fieldfares, thrushes, blackbirds, starlings and larks. Both surface-feeding and diving ducks, too, become at times very plentiful. When the severe weather extends over a large area and is long-continued, the white-fronted, the bean-, and the bernacle-goose may locally become fairly common, and both the whooper and Bewick's swan may appear in small flocks in our estuaries and sea-side pools. In spring the migratory movements are not nearly so pronounced as in the autumn months. Large numbers of birds, especially of the resident species, appear to steal away quietly, and in such loose formation that their departure is not noticed. It is obvious, also, that the majority of the return- ing birds travel by another route, probably further to the east, where the sea passage is so much shorter. Evidently, too, on account of the relatively much greater width of the sea between Cornwall and the Continent, the incoming of the summer migrants and the transit of the spring birds of passage is feeble compared with the rush that occurs in the south-eastern counties. Of the fifteen species recorded in the county list as birds of passage, six occur regularly during autumn migration only : namely the grey phalarope, bar-tailed godwit, greenshank, green sandpiper, grey plover, and black tern. The grey phalarope in fact has been only once recorded in the spring, and up till four years ago the black tern had not been observed half a dozen times alto- gether during that season. Of the remainder, the knot, though at times a fairly conspicuous feature in autumn, is as a rule a scarce bird in the spring ; the yellow wagtail, though seen every year in March and April, never occurs in flocks, as it occasionally does at the Lizard and St. Ives in the autumn ; and the white wagtail is decidedly scarcer in spring than it is in August and September. The whimbrel, sanderling, wood-sandpiper, and the migrating turnstones, on the average of the last six years, seem to be about as numerous 312
