50 IVIessrs. H. H. Slater and T. Carter's 



brought in a clutch of eggs which we put down as belonging 

 to this bird; an opinion which Professor Newton endorses. 



Purple Sandpiper. {Tringa striata.) 



We obtained two clutches of the eggs of this bird^ which 

 would seem to breed sparsely on the bleakest and wildest 

 uplands or '' hei^ies.^' 



Sanderling. {Calidris arenaria.) 



An officious native having, at considerable trouble to him- 

 self, informed the authorities that we were shooting birds in 

 the close season (a fact of which they Avere already quite 

 aware), they felt themselves compelled to send us a messenger 

 with a copy of the law on the subject, as a delicate hint to 

 keep our proceedings quiet. This la^v, it is perhaps worthy 

 of remark, is printed in Danish and French, although nine 

 tenths of the tourists in Iceland are British. The great 

 offenders, owing to whom it originally became necessary to 

 pass the law, are the officers of the various French men-of- 

 war sent there to protect the interest of the bonus-fed French 

 cod-fishermen. These gentry were, and still are, in the habit 

 of going ashore in boatloads, and slaying, no matter at what 

 season, everything they find with feathers on it. 



In consequence of this message from the authorities, we 

 went out for a day or two without guns, and of course one 

 of them proved to be the one day, of all others, when a gun 

 would have been invaluable. For we came upon a nest that 

 day, on a tussock-side at the edge of a marsh, from which 

 the old bird fluttered oflF in a perfectly different manner from 

 a Dunlin ; this, combined with the appearance of the bird, 

 impelled the finder to drop his hat on the nest to mark it, and 

 to follow the old bird, which trotted or crept away, according 

 to the openness of the ground, without uttering a sound, a few 

 yards in front of him. He followed her for about a hundred 

 yards, keeping his field-glasses focused upon her, and then 

 returned to the nest, perfectly convinced that he had been 

 looking at a Sanderling. He was chiefly struck with the 

 rusty colour of her throat, with the plain white breast, and 

 with her perfect muteness. The eggs were packed with great 



