1 88 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS 



sent to him from a locality where he had long sus- 

 pected that the Knot might breed. But see Evans 

 and Buckley, " Fauna of the Shetland Islands," 

 1899, p. 169. 



During the British Polar Expedition of 1876, 

 Col. Feilden, naturalist to H.M.S. "Alert," obtained 

 a male Knot and three nestlings (now preserved in 

 the British Museum), near a small lake on Grinnell 

 Land, in lat. 82° 33' N., and Mr. Chichester Hart, 

 naturalist to H.M.S. "Discovery," captured a brood 

 of four and another of three in lat. 81° 44'. For 

 further details see Zool., 1880, p. 205. 



The weight of an adult Knot is about 6 oz. 



CURLEW SANDPIPER. Tringa suharquata {Gvld^Qn^t.). 

 PL 21, figs. 5, 6. Length, 8-25 in.; bill, 1-5; wmg, 

 5 in. ; tarsus, 1*2 in. 



A spring and autumn migrant, sometimes in 

 considerable flocks. In the spring plumage the 

 under parts are rufous, as in the Knot and God- 

 wits ; in the autumn and winter the under parts 

 are white. It then resembles the Dunling, from 

 which it may be distinguished by its decurved bill 

 and white rump. The discovery of a nest " in a 

 tract of sedgy bog round the Loch of Spynie, near 

 Elgin, on the 8th June 1853," has been chronicled 

 by Mr. Robert Gray in his " Birds of the West of 

 Scotland" (p. 318), but this observation probably 

 has reference to a nest of the Dunling {q.v.), and 

 is not quoted in the more recent work of Mr. 

 Harvie-Brown on the Fauna of the Moray Basin. 



