WOOD SANDPIPER, 227 
course in spring and autumn. At such times, also, in 
company with other migratory waders, it is usually met 
with in close vicinity to the coast, and a very large 
proportion of the specimens procured in Norfolk have 
been killed on Breydon. The very few records of 
this bird by earlier local authors is attributable in 
some degree, no doubt, to the fact that until of late 
years the marked difference of plumage between the 
wood and green sandpipers was but little understood. 
Yet, though probably never common, even as a migrant, 
this species is becoming more and more scarce in this 
county, as will be seen by the subjoined list of recorded 
specimens or such as have come under my own imme- 
diate notice. This growing rarity may perhaps be 
owing to the constant increase of drainage in many 
parts of the opposite shores of Holland where, within 
a few years, it bred numerously. 
Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear omit this species 
altogether from their List of the birds of Norfolk and 
Suffolk; and a pair killed at Yarmouth in the spring 
of 1833* are the only ones mentioned by the Messrs. 
Paget. Mr. Hunt speaks of two or three examples as 
having been killed at Yarmouth. A young bird figured 
by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher in the “ Zoologist”’ for 
1846 (p. 13824), which, together with an adult female 
shot at the same time, is now in Mr. J. H. Gurney’s 
collection, was killed in a marsh, at Beechamwell, many 
years ago during the summer months, by Mr. Scales, 
of bustard celebrity. This youngster “not having 
entirely lost its down,” and being “ evidently not suffi- 
ciently feathered to have crossed the sea,” was naturally 
presumed “to have been hatched near the spot where 
it was killed ;” and is the only instance in which the 
* These birds, according to Mr. J. Clarke, are still preserved in 
the Saffron Walden Museum. 
262 
