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 his “ 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 point 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 (Linneus). 
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 little 
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. Next 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 ats breeding plumage; they were all very 
fat. Previously he had only twice met with this species at Rain- 
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. 
