COMMON SANDPIPER. 231 



In Higher Wyresdale it is well known, and round the 

 tarns and lakes of the Furness fells it breeds regularl}-, 

 as also on all the streams which flow into Morecambe 

 Bay. The eggs are four in number, and are laid about 

 the beginning of May, in a slightly-constructed nest, 

 usually a very little way from the water, among the 

 short docks and herbage. Sometimes, however, it is 

 built as much as one hundred yards off {Zool., 1872, 

 A. von Hiigel), and an early nest taken by Mr. T. Altham 

 on April 25th, 1875, and which had four fresh eggs, 

 was close to a footpath quite forty yards from a 

 stream. The young are able to run about immediately 

 on being hatched, and the late Mr. Thomas Garnett of 

 CHtheroe described {Mar/. Nat. Hist., 1833, p. 148) an 

 instance, in which attempts at escape were made by 

 chicks which had only been out of the shell an hour or 

 two. Both young and old readily take to the water, 

 and the latter are expert swimmers and divers, able, 

 even if winged, to baffle the utmost efforts of a dog to 

 seize them. 



SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 



Tringoides macularius (Linnaeus). 



In a paper on the Notabilia of the Archaeology and 

 Natural History of the Mersey District during the years 

 1863, 1864, 1865, by Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith, published 

 in the Proceedings of tJie Historic Society of LancasJiii-e 

 and Cheshire, Session 1865-66, is a note on this 

 North American species by Mr. C. S. Gregson, who says : 

 " Edwin Lord of "Warrington shot two on the Mersey 

 below that town in May, 1863, one of which I possess. 



