6o8 WOOD-SANDPIPER. 



The Wood-Sandpiper is only a wanderer to the Faeroes, but on the 

 mainland of Northern Europe it is common during the summer, 

 breeding as far south as the valley of the Danube, and probably in some 

 parts of North Italy; while on May 28th 1870 I shot a bird which 

 had evidently been incubating, on the edge of a wooded marsh near 

 Aranjuez in Central Spain. Over the rest of the Continent it is well 

 known on passage ; its migrations reaching to South Africa, India, 

 Malayasia and Australia. In Asia its breeding-range stretches from 

 the great mountain-ranges northward to the Taimyr, and eastward 

 to Kamchatka. 



In Europe the nest is usually concealed in some depression on 

 tolerably dry ground, though not far from water, and usually 

 amongst bog-myrtle, stunted heath, sedge, or other coarse vegeta- 

 tion ; but on the Yenesei Mr. Popham found that, in four cases out 

 of five, the eggs were laid in old nests of the Fieldfare. As this 

 habit had previously been supposed to be peculiar to the Green 

 Sandpiper, the sitting-birds (all males) were shot. The eggs, 4 in 

 number, are often pale green in ground-colour, though sometimes 

 buffish-white, and are speckled and blotched with reddish-brown, 

 especially at the broader end : measurements i '5 by i in. Incubation 

 begins about the middle of May in Holland, though later in the 

 north ; the male indulging in ' play ' similar to that of the Common 

 Sandpiper during courtship, and uttering a tremulous note, hero, 

 leero; but the cry of alarm is a sharp giff, giff. This bird perches 

 on bushes, trees or stakes even more often than its predecessor. It 

 feeds on worms, small molluscs, insects and their larvae, and a disagree- 

 able musky odour usually pervades its flesh. 



This species is rather smaller than the Green Sandpiper, but with 

 a proportionately longer tarsus ; and it has the upper parts streaked 

 with olive-brown, the margin of each feather of the mantle showing 

 bufifish-white spots (elongated and well defined in the young, smaller 

 and triangular in the adult) ; the quills are dusky, but the outer one 

 has a white shaft (not dusky as in the Green Sandpiper) ; upper tail- 

 coverts white with narrow dark shaft-flecks ; outer tail-feathers white, 

 with bars on both webs in the young and on the outer web only in 

 the adult, the remaining feathers being distinctly barred ; neck, 

 throat and breast dull white, thickly streaked with ash-brown, the 

 flanks being barred with the same colour; axillaries white, merely 

 flecked with brown ; abdomen white ; legs and feet yellowish-olive. 

 Length 8*5 in. (bill I'l), wing 5 in. 



Illustrations of the characteristic axillaries and tail-feathers of this 

 and of the Green Sandpiper jre given on p. 612. 



