GBEEN SANDPIPER 17 



They were always to be found in the same spot, and after feeding they fre- 

 quently flitted on to a stone wall, where for a little while they would remain 

 motionless. At intervals they suddenly shot up into the air for a short distance, 

 darting down again to the same stone with astonishing speed. On the wing they 

 displayed great activity and adroitness, the female twisting and turning to 

 escape the addresses of the male. 



Newton (1896) writes: 



Yet in the breeding season, even in England, the cock bird has been seen to 

 rise high in air and perform a variety of evolutions on the wing, all the while 

 piping what without any violence of language may be called a song. 



Doctor Hartert (1920), speaking of its habits on its breeding 

 grounds, remarks that it may be seen shooting through the air with 

 the speed of an arrow, and opines that this must be the love flight. 

 With the exception of these notes and some references to the song 

 (which are referred to under the heading of Voice), I can find 

 nothing in the literature with regard to the actual courtship, except 

 Hartert's statement that on the ground the male trips about, with tail 

 outspread like a fan, calling loudly. When, however, a j)air has 

 definitely settled down in its breeding territory, both birds are ex- 

 ceedingly noisy and demonstrative. Wheelwright (1864) speaks of 

 the " boisterous, noisy behavior " of this bird, and in his later work 

 on Sweden (1865) remarks: 



Now, of all our waders, this is the noisiest, and there is little trouble in finding 

 the locality where it breeds, for the old male is always about some brook in the 

 neighborhood, and I have before noticed that the loud, wild cry of the green 

 sandpiper and greenshank are much alike. 



Nesting. — The nesting habits of the green sandpiper have been 

 fully described, but were practically unknown to naturalists till about 

 1852-7-1860, when quite independently Forester, Weise, and Hintz 

 (sen.), in Germany, and H. AV. Wheelwright in Sweden, published 

 the results of their discoveries. The story is told in detail by Forest- 

 Inspector Weise, in the Journal fwr Ornitliologie for 1855 (p. 514). 

 He had first heard of the habit of adopting old nests of other species 

 in trees from an old ranger, but naturally discredited it. However, 

 in 1845, the same man brought him four sandpipers' eggs from a nest 

 in an old beech. Next spring Weise found a green sandpiper breed- 

 ing in a pine about 25 or 30 feet from the ground. He climbed to 

 the nest and found the four eggs so highly .incubated that the young 

 could be heard squeaking inside the shells. Two other nests in 

 similar sites came to his notice subsequently, the last on May 25, 

 1855, when the four eggs were already chipped. 



Forester, W. Hintz 1, writing in the same periodical for 1862 (p. 

 460) says that he had found sandpipers' nests in trees as far back as 

 1818, but at that time he had no correspondents who took any 



