The items here are largely unchecked reports, and must not be regarded as authenticated records. They are selected, on the present writers' judgment alone, from sources generally found to be reliable. Observers' names are usually omitted for reasons of space and in case a report is subsequently rejected, and none of the items will be mentioned in our annual Index, Readers are asked to submit anything of interest as quickly as possible. This summary is mainly concerned with the second half of July and the first three weeks of August. It thus deals with the chief excitements of the opening phase of the autumn, though we mentioned some early wanderers and the beginning of the return wader passage in the last issue (pp. 567-368).Contrary to the usual position (see, for example, pp. 369-578), this period brought an early fall of birds from the other side of the Atlantic. There were three Pectoral Sandpipers (Calidris melanoses') about the end of July and later a fourth was found, while the more or less simultaneous and equally early arrival of three Sabine's Gulls (Xema sabini) suggested that they too had come from the New World-- northern Greenland or arctic Canada--rather than Spitsbergen or Siberia. The first two Pectorals were in the south-east, at Stoke (Kent) and Perry Oaks (Middlesex) on 24th-25th and 29th-3oth July respectively, the descriptions suggesting different individuals. Next, soon afterwards, one was found on the Dee estuary at Shotton Pools (Flint): it remained from 31st July or 1st August until