146 EGGS OF BKITISH BIBDS. 



The eggs are four in number. Those taken by Mr. MacFarlane 

 are pyriform in shape, olive-brown or brownish-olive in ground- 

 colour, marked with somewhat bold surface-spots of dark brown, 

 and underlying spots of greyish-brown. Many of the markings 

 are confluent on the larger end of the eggs, which measure 1'35 

 inch in length, and 095 inch in breadth. An egg in my collection 

 is greyish-buff in ground-colour, thickly spotted over the entire 

 surface with reddish-brown and with a few larger blotches of the 

 same colour intermingled, and with numerous underlying markings 

 of purplish-grey and pale brown. 



THE SHAKP-TAILED SANDPIPER 



(Tringa acuminata).* 



Of this Asiatic Sandpiper two specimens have been obtained in 

 England, both of the occurrences having taken place near 

 Yarmouth in autumn. The breeding-home of the species is 

 undoubtedly North-eastern Siberia, but the nest and eggs have 

 not yet been described. 



THE PUEPLE SANDPIPER 



(Tringa maritima.) t 



Plate 43, Figs. 2, 5. 



The Purple Sandpiper is a winter visitor to the British Islands, 

 but it is believed to breed in some of the outer Hebrides and the 

 Shetlands. It is a summer visitor to North Greenland, Spits- 

 bergen, Novaya Zemlya, and to the Taimur Peninsula, but is a 

 resident species in South Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, and on 

 the Norwegian Coast. 



The nest is merely a little hollow scraped in the scanty vegeta- 

 tion, and lined with a few dry sprigs of moss, or a little dried 

 grass. 



The eggs are four in number and remarkably handsome. They 

 vary in ground-colour from pale-olive to pale bumsh-brown, boldly 



* Heteropygia acuminata — Sharpe, Handb., III., p. 244. 

 f Avquatclla maritima— Sharpe, Handb., III., p. 236. 



