263 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



islands, calls for some passing notice. Its eggs were 

 obtained by the late Mr. Hancock, forty years ago, on 

 the now drained Prestwick Car, in Northumberland. 

 Its eggs are also reputed to have been taken in Elgin. 

 It is therefore not improbable that odd pairs of this bird 

 may breed from time to time in the British Archipelago. 

 Tlie breeding season of this Sandpiper begins early in 

 May in southern haunts. The nest is usually made on 

 a bit of dryer ground near swamps, in willow thickets, 

 or amongst heath sedge and coarse grass. It is merely 

 a hollow, scantily lined with a few bits of dead herbage. 

 The eggs are four in number, pyriform in shape, and 

 vary from creamy-white or pale buff to very pale olive- 

 brown in ground colour, boldly blotched and spotted 

 with rich reddish-brown, and with a few underlying 

 markings of pale brown. Average measurement, r45 

 inch in length, by ro inch in breadth. It may be 

 remarked that the eggs of the Wood Sandpiper cannot 

 readily be confused with those of any other species breed- 

 ing in our islands — provisionally, excepting those of the 

 Green Sandpiper, a species that may yet be detected 

 nesting in them. The Wood Sandpiper only rears one- 

 brood in the 'season, and incubation, performed chiefly 

 by the female, lasts about twenty-one days. 



