134 EGGS OF BEITISH BIRDS. 



can tundras above the limit of forest-growth, and occasionally 

 crossing to the Siberian side of Bering Straits. It winters 

 throughout South America below the Equator. 



It is said to breed on the open plain or tundra, and its nest is very 

 slight, consisting of a little hollow in the ground, lined with a few 

 bits of dry herbage, or one or two withered leaves and bents. 



In this scanty cradle the female deposits four eggs ; but Richard- 

 son once observed a female sitting on three. I have figured an egg 

 of this bird which is in the collection of my friend Mr. Philip 

 Crowley ; it is pale olivaceous-buff in ground-colour, spotted and 

 blotched with light and dark brown, and with faint underlying 

 markings of greyish-brown. In the series of eggs collected by 

 MacFarlane near the Anderson River, and now in the collection 

 of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, the ground-colour 

 varies from greyish-buff to greenish-olive on the one hand, and 

 to huffish-brown on the other. The overlying spots are dark 

 reddish-brown, sometimes small, but generally bold, and are 

 usually most abundant, often confluent, round the large end of 

 the egg ; the underlying markings, generally conspicuous, are 

 pale greyish-brown. The eggs are pyriform in shape, and vaiy 

 in length from 212 to 1"9 inch, and in breadth from 15 to 1'33 

 inch. 



BARTRAM'S SANDPIPER. 



(Totanus bartrami.)* 



Plate 44, Figs. 10, 12. 



Eight examples of Bartram's Sandpiper have been obtained 

 in Great Britain. The species inhabits temperate North America. 



The nest is very slight — a small depression in the ground, 

 carelessly lined with a few straws or bits of herbage, which is all 

 the provision that is made. 



The eggs are always four in number, and are laid by the second 

 week in June. They vary in ground-colour from pale greyish-buff 

 to pale bumsh-brown ; rather sparingly spotted, and blotched 

 with reddish-brown and with grey underlying markings. Some 

 eggs have a few delicate streaks of brown at the large end. The 

 markings are never very large, varying from the size of a pea to 



* Bartramia longicauda (Bechst.) — Saunders, Manual, p. 589; Sharpe, Handb., 



III., p. 207. 



