WOOD SANDPIPER. 467 



perch on bushes, trees, and stakes ; and in the pamng- 

 season it indulges in ' play ' after the manner of the Com- 

 mon Snipe, producing a similar tremulous sound. Its 

 call-note is likened by Mr. Wolley to hero, leero, and by 

 Meyer to teatr'd, teatril ; the alarm hemggijf, gijf. The food 

 of this species consists of worms, insects and their larvae, 

 and small mollusks ; and Mr. Collett has remarked a musky 

 odour in those he shot, similar to that already mentioned as 

 observed in the Green Sandpiper. 



This bird is a little smaller than the Green Sandpiper, 

 and has a proportionately shorter bill and longer tarsus ; the 

 beak greenish-black, except at the base of the lower mandi- 

 ble, which is pale brown ; the irides dusky-brown ; from the 

 base of the upper mandible to the eye a dusky patch ; over 

 that and over the ear-coverts a white streak ; the top of the 

 head, and back of the neck, wing-coverts, and tertials, 

 greenish-brown, each feather margined with buffy-white 

 spots, which are elongated and well-defined in the young, 

 smaller and triangular in the adult ; primaries uniform 

 greenish-black, the shaft of the outer ones white, not dusky 

 as in the Green Sandpiper ; upper tail-coverts white, some- 

 times spotted with dark brown, especially in adult Siberian 

 examples; outside tail-feathers white, barred with brown on 

 both webs in the young : spotted rather than barred on the 

 outer web only, in the adults ; the remaining tail-feathers 

 more distinctly barred, but the ground-colour of the two 

 central ones becoming dusky towards the tip ; chin white ; 

 sides of the neck, throat, and breast, streaked downwards 

 with ash-brown lines on a ground of dull greyish-white ; 

 belly, vent, and under tail-coverts, Avhite ; sides, axillary 

 plume, and under wing-coverts, white, with a few transverse 

 dusky bars ; legs, toes, and claws, yellowish-olive. 



The whole length is not quite nine inches. From the 

 carpal joint to the end of the first quill-feather, which is the 

 longest in the wing, five inches. 



In the nestling the crown is covered with a dark brown 

 cap, slightly paler in the centre ; the dark streaks through 

 each eye unite at the nape, but are separated from the crown- 



