AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



87 



As a rule (in our neighbourhood at least) these birds 

 do not frequent the river-sides, but during open 

 weather are to be met with at particular ponds in 

 our pastures, where the cattle have trodden their 

 drinking-places into more or less bare mud ; at such 

 spots a Green Sandpiper or two may frequently be 

 found from the middle of July till the first severe 

 frosts compel them to seek the margins of unfrozen 

 brooks, and eventually send them down to the sea- 

 shores. Few of our neighbours are ornithologists, 



$€j: 



Gr-reen Sandpiper. 



and some of them, having seen a bird with a longish 

 bill rise alone from a soft place with a loud and 

 striking whistle, have at various times obligingly, 

 and in all good faith, assured me that they had seen 

 a Solitary Snipe ; on these occasions I have almost 

 invariably satisfied my mind, and saved myself a 

 fruitless quest, by obtaining an affirmative answer to 

 the question " Had the bird a white patch on its 

 its back'? " as the Mhite of the upper tail-coverts and 



