406 SCOLOPACID/E. 



do so through Transylvania ; the valley of the Volga being 

 another route. It occurs on migration along the entire 

 shores of the Mediterranean, and some remain there during 

 the winter, hut the majority continue their course southwards, 

 and, visiting Madeira, descend the African Continent along 

 the line of the west coast ; and by Egyi3t, Nubia, and the 

 Red Sea to the Comoro Islands and Madagascar, to Natal, 

 and to Cape Colony, where it is very abundant. Eastwards 

 its winter range extends along the coasts of India to Ceylon, 

 where Colonel Legge also found many birds of the previous 

 year remaining throughout June and July ; and thence down 

 Burmah, Tenasserim, and the Malay Archipelago, to New 

 Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania. It occurs on the elevated 

 salt-lakes of Northern India, and evidently crosses the great 

 mountain barrier on its migrations, for it was observed at 

 Yarkand, and Dr. Severtzoff thinks it probable that this 

 species breeds in the Pamir (Ibis, 1883, p. 75). In Southern 

 Siberia it certainly occurs on passage, and also in Mongolia, 

 though rare on the Amoor ; and it is abundant on migration 

 along the coast of China. 



In Spitsbergen and Greenland the Curlew Sandpiper has 

 not yet been found, and a hasty statement by a now deceased 

 American ornithologist, as to the supposed discovery of its 

 eggs in the latter country, is undoubtedly an error (Ibis, 

 1879, p. 48(3). To the American Continent the species is 

 a rare straggler, chiefly to the Eastern United States. On 

 the Pacific coast its occurrence has not yet been recorded, 

 notwithstanding the approximation of its range on the Asiatic 

 side of Behring's Straits, as already mentioned. 



This species is generally found in small parties, which 

 keep somewhat apart from the other waders feeding in their 

 vicinity. They feed on insects, small Crustacea, and worms, 

 which they obtain by probing in the soft sand at the edge of 

 the water. 



The Curlew Sandpiper in its summer plumage has the 

 beak nearly black ; the irides brown ; the head and neck 

 all round reddish-chestnut, slightly varied with small streaks 

 of black and white ; the back, scapulars, small wing-coverts, 



II 



