286 CHARADRIIFORMES CHAP. 
yellow eggs with brown spots in a slight nest on cultivated 
lands. 
Actitis hypoleucus, the Common Sandpiper, breeds in many 
parts of Britain, and ranges from the Arctic Circle in Europe 
and Asia to the Atlantic Islands, the Mediterranean, the 
Himalayas, and Japan; it leaves us before winter, however, and 
migrates to most of the Ethiopian, Indian, and Australian 
Regions. The coloration is greenish-brown above, with dusky 
markings, and some white on the wings and tail; the breast is 
grey with dark streaks, the belly white. In winter the upper 
parts are more uniform. Rapid pebbly streams with islands, or 
flat stretches of sand are the birds’ favourite resorts, where their 
shrill whistle and somewhat Wagtail-like habits make them very 
conspicuous ; they fly, run, perch, or swim with equal ease. The 
nest, usually partly sheltered by rough vegetation or drifted 
rubbish, contains four reddish-buff eggs with brown and _ lilac 
spotting. A. macularius, the Spotted Sandpiper of North America 
generally, found in winter southwards to Amazonia and Brazil, is 
smaller, with round black spots beneath in summer; it lacks the 
nearly white eighth and ninth secondaries of its congener, 
Terekia cinerea, with the up-curved beak of a Greenshank, but 
the habits and eggs of the last genus, breeds from Archangel 
eastward to the Pacific, leaving these haunts for the Indian Region 
to winter, when it is also found in South Africa and Australia. 
It is grey and black above, with white on the secondaries, and 
black scapulars, and white below streaked with dusky. 
Micropalama himantopus, the long-legged Stilt-Sandpiper, 
inhabits the extreme North-East of America, migrating to Peru 
and Argentina. It has black, rufous, and greyish-white upper 
parts, white tail-coverts, and under parts with blackish bars; in 
winter the back is grey, while the bars nearly disappear beneath. 
The habits, nest, and eggs are much as in other Sandpipers. 
The Godwits (Zimosa) have long legs and bills, the latter being 
slightly up-curved. LZ. belgica, the Black-tailed Godwit, nested 
regularly, up to about 1824, in the eastern counties of England, 
and, like the Ruff, was netted for eating. It now breeds from 
Iceland, the Fiiroes, and Holland to Siberia and Amurland, the 
smaller eastern form being sometimes denominated LZ. me/anu- 
roides ; the winter range reaches to the Atlantic Islands, Abys- 
sinia, Ceylon, the Malay Islands, Japan, Australia, and Polynesia. 
