WOOD-SANDPIPER. I33 



has quite differently coloured axillaries. In the Green Sandpiper these 

 feathers are dark brown, narrowly barred with white ; whilst in the Wood- 

 Sandpiper they are white with a few obscure brown bars, and on the wing 

 the Wood- Sandpiper may be distinguished by the white bar across the 

 wings, which is not observable in the Green Sandpiper. Linnreus is 

 supposed to have separated them in the tenth edition of his great work • 

 but in the twelfth edition he degraded the Wood-Sandpiper to the rank of 

 a variety of the Green Sandpiper. Brisson a})pcars to have been unac- 

 quainted with the Wood-Sandpiper; but Gmehn seems to have known 

 something of it, as he recognized the specific distinctness. Colonel Montagu 

 to whom we are indebted for many additions to the list of British birds 

 rediscovered the species in Devonshire ; and though at first he supposed it 

 to be an undescribed bird, he afterwards recognized its identity with the 

 Tringa glareola of Linnaeus. The confusion has been increased by the 

 unfortunate choice of the name Wood- Sandpiper for this species. The 

 Green Sandpiper is the true ^t^oo^-sandpiper, not only frequentino- forests 

 but actually breeding in trees. The Wood-Sandpiper has, however, borne 

 its name so long that to alter it would make confusion worse confounded • 

 nor is the name entirely inappropriate, inasmuch as it does frequently perch 

 on bushes. The favourite haunts of the Wood-Sandpiper are wide open 

 moors, where little ponds of open water are to be found, half concealed by 

 willow bushes. 



Like all the Sandpipers with which we have to deal in this work the 

 Wood-Sandpiper is a migratory bird, arriving somewhat late in spring and 

 leaving early in autumn. Irby says that they pass Gibraltar from the 9th 

 of March to the beginning of May, and Lord Lilford describes them as 

 passing Corfu about the same date. Naumanu states that the sprino- 

 migration in North Germany lasts from the beginning of April to the 

 beginning of June. They seldom arrive on our coasts before May ; and in 

 lat. 66°, in the valley of the Petchora, Harvie-Brown and I first met with 

 them on the 26th of May ; whilst on the Arctic circle, in the valley of the 

 Yenesay, I shot my first Wood-Sandpiper on the 6th of June — in both the 

 latter cases among the rather late arrivals. The autumn migration begins 

 early in August. 



I first made the acquaintance of this most interesting bird on the fields 

 of Lapland, near the Varanger Fjord, in 1874; but in the following year 

 I had much greater opportunities of watching its habits in the valley of 

 the Petchora. On their first arrival they were absurdly tame, allowing us 

 to approach within a few yards of them, as they frequented the pools 

 formed by the rapidly melting snow in the streets of the town of Ust 

 Zylma. A week later we found them very common at Haberiki, thirty 

 miles further north. They were feeding on the edges of the marshes and 

 the little forest tarns ; and after we had shot one of them from the summit 



