GREEN SANDPIPER, 461 



alone or in pairs or family parties, and is a shy and 

 watchful species, frequently shifting its feeding-grounds for 

 no assignable reason. The flight is rapid and glancing ; 

 and the note is a remarkable shrill whistling tui-tui-tui. 

 Mr. Harting, who has given a long and excellent account 

 of its habits (B. of Middlesex, pp. 173-177), says that 

 it is more sluggish in its movements than the Common 

 Sandpiper, feeding more slowly and systematically. It is 

 not a surface feeder, but bores a good deal for its food, 

 which consists chiefly of small beetles, spiders, very small 

 red worms, woodlice, and small fresh- water snails, mingled 

 with a little vegetable matter, and with less admixture of 

 grit than is usual with other species of the genus. Of a bird 

 wounded on the 2nd November, 1840, and kept alive, the 

 late Mr. Doubleday wrote to the Author that it was not at all 

 shy, and fed readily upon small worms, first dipping them in 

 a pan of water ; it ran about the room rapidly, constantly 

 moving its tail up and down like a Wheatear. The flesh is 

 described by the late Rev. R. Lubbock as having " a most 

 fulsome muddy smell," although the bird is generally fat; 

 and Mr. Cordeaux and Colonel Irby speak of its semi-aromatic 

 and musky odour, but Mr. Guruey and others have not 

 noticed this. 



The beak is greenish-black ; the irides hazel ; from the 

 beak to the eye a dusky-brown streak ; over that and over 

 the eye a white one ; top of the head, back of the neck, 

 back, wing-coverts, and tertials greenish-brown, with numer- 

 ous small light-coloured spots ; primary quill-feathers dusky- 

 black ; upper tail-coverts white ; tail-feathers for the greater 

 part white ; the outside feather on each side with one small 

 dark spot on the outer web near the end ; the next feather 

 with two dark spots ; the third and fourth with two rather 

 broad dark bands ; the fifth and sixth with three or four 

 dark bands, but all the marks are on the distal half of the 

 tail-feathers, leaving the basal half pure white ; chin white ; 

 throat, front, and sides of the neck, white, streaked down- 

 wards with dusky lines ; breast and all the under surface of 

 the body white ; sides and axillary plume dusky, with narrow 



