Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/305

Rh ground give (in most cases, I am not sure if in all) a little run forward. After the descent there was a good deal of running about, and very shortly another smaller flock flew up, doubtless from same place, though this I did not see. This last may have contained some twenty to thirty birds. The main body it was impossible to count; they were more together than before, not in the long straggling line that I had noted on 20th. After they had gone down I made haste to count them before they had become more concealed by the heather, and I made out one hundred and eight, some five or ten minutes later about seventy, and again, counting them after making these entries (commencing from about the Herons, and taking, I should say, a quarter of an hour), I could still make out fifty-four. They do not therefore appear to have concealed themselves quite so effectually as on 21st. There were no birds running about. As far as I can judge without a watch, it must have been about 8 a.m. when the birds flew up. After the last batch of them had arrived I again heard, once, the whistling note I have described ("tir-whi-whi-whi-whi-whi"), otherwise there was complete silence.