CURLEW SANDPIPER. 405 



The spring migrants northwards have heen known to 

 arrive on our shores by the 19th of March, and they con- 

 tinue to pass until June, but their numbers are far less than 

 in autumn. As already mentioned (antea, p. 353), this 

 species has been stated to have bred in Scotland, but there 

 is no evidence that the species was correctly identified. The 

 breeding-haunts of the Curlew Sandpiper are not as yet defi- 

 nitely known, and its eggs are still undiscovered. 



The occurrence of the Curlew Sandpiper as a stragger to 

 Iceland rests on the authority of Von Heuglin, and Major 

 Feilden does not include it in his list of birds of the Faeroes. 

 In Norway, Sweden, and even in Finland, it is principally 

 known on the autumnal migration, and is very rare in spring. 

 At Dvoinick, at the mouth of the Petchora, Mr. Seebohm 

 shot a female on the 15th July, out of a flock of six or 

 seven, but it showed no signs of having been breeding. On 

 his subsequent visit to the Yenesei, much farther east, he 

 shot a bird in breeding-plumage on the 15th June, close to 

 the Arctic circle, but he failed to acquire any knowledge of 

 the precise locality of its nesting-ground. In a letter written 

 on the Ob, Dr. 0. Finsch stated (Ibis, 1877, p. 61) that he 

 had found the downy young on the Yalmal Peninsula, but he 

 subsequentl}' corrected this, and the supposed Curlew Sand- 

 pipers proved to be Dunlins. Middendorff was the nearest, 

 for he observed it on the Taimyr river, in lat 74° N., early 

 in June, dispersed over the tundras for breeding purposes, 

 and he obtained a female with a partially-shelled egg in the 

 oviduct. Its summer range doubtless extends all along that 

 Arctic coast, for the ' Vega' expedition obtained it at Jinretlen, 

 close to Behring's Straits, on the Gth June, 1879. 



Returning to Europe, we find the Curlew Sandpiper as a 

 migrant on all the coasts of the Continent, where the localities 

 are of a suitable nature. On the west coasts of France and 

 of the Iberian Peninsula, it is principally an autumnal visi- 

 tant, but from the mouth of the Guadalquivir to the extreme 

 north-east of Spain it is very abundant in spring, frequently 

 in the fullest breeding-plumage. Some cross Europe by the 

 line of the Rhine and Rhone valleys, and others appear to 



