NON-IXDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS, 249 



Of the pairing habits of this Sandpiper nothing appears 

 to have been recorded. With the possible exception of 

 txhe Solitary Sandpiper, the breeding habits of the present 

 species are, so far as is known, unique. Instead of 

 making its nest upon the ground, it lays its eggs in trees, 

 usually in the deserted home of some other bird. This 

 extraordinary fact had long been known to some conti- 

 nental naturalists (although apparently the great German 

 bird man, Naumann, was unaware of it), but was not 

 generally known to British ornithologists until Professor 

 Newton brought the circumstances before the Zoological 

 Society of London, his communication being published 

 in the Proceedings oi that body in 1863. During the 

 breeding season the Green Sandpiper is seen as often in 

 trees and bushes as upon the ground. The favourite 

 breeding haunts of this bird are open, marshy forests, 

 the banks of wooded streams, and swampy thickets. 

 A deserted nest of a Blackbird or a Thrush, a Jay or a 

 Ring Dove, or even a Crow is often selected. As a rule 

 old nests are preferred from three to twelve feet from 

 the ground, but the eggs have been taken from an old 

 drey of a squirrel as much as thirty feet above it, whilst 

 others have been found in a hole in a fallen tree, and on 

 the stump of a tree which had either been felled or 

 blown down. Less frequently the eggs are laid in the 

 hollow of a forking branch, on a heap of drifted leaves, 

 or on lichen. Almost invariably the selected spot is 

 close to water, and often in marshes. 



Range of egg colouration and measurement : 

 The eggs of the Green Sandpiper are four in number. 

 As seven have been found together, it would appear that 

 two females sometimes agree to share the same spot. 

 They vary from creamy-white, sometimes tinged with 

 pale olive, to pale bufif in ground colour, spotted with 

 dark reddish-brown, and with underlying markings of 



