230 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



It is needless here to enter into any detailed descrip- 

 tion of the peculiarities in plumage of the wood and 

 green sandpipers, as this point is so fully explained 

 by Yarrell. My friend Mr. Harting, both in bis " Birds 

 of Middlesex " and in a communication to the " Zoolo- 

 gist " for 1867 (p. 973), has also done good service 

 in this respect, adding, moreover, one new poiht of 

 difference, that "in the wood sandpiper the shaft of 

 the first quill feather is white, the remaining shafts 

 dusky ; whereas in the green sandpiper the shafts of all 

 the quill feathers are dusky." 



TOTANUS HYPOLEUCUS (Linnaeus). 

 COMMON SANDPIPER. 



This species, familiarly known as the " Summer 

 Snipe," visits us regularly in spring and autumn, though 

 not in large numbers, seldom more than one, or at most 

 a pair, being observed at one time in spring, or httle 

 family groups of half a dozen together at the close of the 

 breeding season. About the first week in May they 

 suddenly make their appearance with other migrants on 

 our coast, and are then, also, for a few days pretty 

 generally distributed over the county ; frequenting the 

 banks of our rivers, lakes, and larger ponds in prefer- 

 round the ditches like dunlins. ISText morning he only met with 

 one, and after that only occasionally came across a few, seeing the 

 last on the 6th of September." Although the flock seemed to 

 consist chiefly of young birds, he obtained one old female, which 

 had not entirely lost its breeding plumage; they were all very 

 fat. Previously he had only twice met with this species at Eain- 

 ham — " one seen in July, 1865," and a second obtained on the 

 15th of July, 1866, on the same marsh where this large flock were 

 observed. 



