The Blacktailed Godwit is also included in Professor Ansted’s list, but I have never seen the bird in the Islands or been able to glean any information concerning it, and there is no specimen in the Museum.

116.  GREENSHANK. Totanus canescens, Gmelin.  French, “Chevalier gris,” “Chevalier aboyeur.”—­The Greenshank can only be considered a rare occasional visitant.  I have never shot or seen it myself in the Islands, but Miss C.B.  Carey records one in the ‘Zoologist’ for 1872 as having been shot on the 2nd of October of that year, and brought to Mr. Couch’s, at whose shop she saw it.

The Greenshank is included in Professor Ansted’s list, but there is no letter to note which of the Islands it has occurred in.  There is no specimen in the Museum.

117.  RUFF. Machetes pugnax, Linnaeus.  French, “Combatant,” “Combatant variable.”—­The Ruff is an occasional but not very common autumn and winter visitant; it occurs, probably, more frequently in the autumn than the winter.  Mr. MacCulloch writes me, “I have a note of a Ruff shot in October, 1871.”  This probably was, like all the Guernsey specimens I have seen, a young bird of the year in that state of plumage in which it leads to all sorts of mistakes, people wildly supposing it to be either a Buff-breasted or a Bartram’s Sandpiper.  Miss C.B.  Carey records one in the ‘Zoologist’ for 1871 as shot in September of that year; this was a young bird of the year.  Miss C.B.  Carey also records two in the ‘Zoologist’ for 1872 as having been shot about the 13th of April in that year; these she describes as being in change of plumage but having no ruff yet; probably the change of colour in the feathers was beginning before the long feathers of the ruff began to grow; and this agrees with what I have seen of the Ruff in confinement; the change of colour in the feathers of the body begins before the ruff makes its appearance.

Professor Ansted includes the Ruff in his list, and only marks it as occurring in Guernsey.  There is no specimen in the Museum at present.

118.  WOODCOCK. Scolopax rusticola, Linnaeus.  French, “Becasse ordinaire.”—­The Woodcock is a regular and tolerably common autumnal visitant to all the Islands, arriving and departing about the same time as in England,—­none, however, remaining to breed, as is so frequently the case with us.  There might be some good cock shooting in the Islands if the Woodcocks were the least preserved, but as soon as one is heard of every person in the Island who can beg, borrow, or steal a gun and some powder and shot is out long before daylight, waiting for the first shot at the unfortunate Woodcock as soon as there should be sufficient daylight.  In fact, such a scramble is there for a chance at a Woodcock that a friend of mine told me he got up long before daylight one morning and went to a favourite spot to begin at; thinking to be first on the ground, he sat on a gate close by waiting for daylight; but