78 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



During the first few days after arrival, especially if the weather 

 is mild, the birds fly hither and thither over the water evidently 

 in great excitement Sometimes they are just skimming over 

 the water, at other times they are high up, beating the air with 

 short strokes of the wing, giving the impression that the wing 

 joints are stiff and the birds are trying to make them supple by 

 practice. All the time they are giving vent to a pleasant trilling- 

 note, their nearest approach to a song. 



This species frequents all kinds of streams and sheets of water, 

 sluggish rivers and mountain torrents, lakes and ponds, but it has 

 a preference for those with gravelly and sandy banks or margins. 

 Although said not to frequent the sea coast, in my experience it 

 is quite common there. 



I have seen nests by the shore in Bute, on Sgat Mohr, and 

 Liath Eilean in Lochfine, small islets without a drop of fresh 

 water. On Inchmarnock, among a number of eggs destroyed by 

 Carrion Crows were those of the Common Sandpiper. When I 

 paid a visit to the island of Eigg a few years ago, one of the first 

 birds I saw when I landed was a Common Sandpiper which I 

 flushed from a nest and four eggs not fifty feet from salt water. 

 I found the bird common all round the Island of Muck, which 

 cannot boast of a respectable burn. In fact, any time I have 

 been at the coast, in the season, I have found the bird more or 

 less numerous. It is not particular whether the water is salt or 

 fresh, clean or dirty. It even nests on the banks of the sluggish 

 and polluted White Cart in Nether Pollok and Hawkhead 

 Estates. I remember when it used to frequent an old clay pit 

 between Pollokshaws Road and Victoria Road, Glasgow, and 

 probably nested there. 



By the first week of May the early birds begin to select 

 nesting sites. The earliest nest I have seen was on 6th May, 

 1893, one with three eggs, on the Kilpatrick Hills. The site 

 chosen is usually on some sloping bank, it may be at the water's 

 edge, or it may be 300 yards back from the water. The nest is a 

 slight affair, not, as a rule, very well concealed. A hollow 

 scratched in the ground, with a few pieces of grass, dead leaves, 

 or withered herbage, receives the four pear-shaped eggs. These 

 are placed with the pointed ends inwards and downwards, so that 

 they are nearly standing on end, and consequently occupy an 



