178 BIRDS OF MIDDLESEX. 



side with one small dark spot on the outer weh 

 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. 



In the Wood Sandpiper, the tail-feathers are 

 barred with narrow transverse white bars on a 

 ground colour of greenish black. The axillary 

 plume in the Green Sandpiper is greyish black, 

 with narrow angular white bars : in the Wood Sand- 

 piper it is white, faintly marked with transverse 

 dusky bars. 



There is another point, also, in which these birds 

 differ, and which appears to have been hitherto 

 overlooked. In the Wood Sandpiper the shaft of 

 the first quill-feather is white, the remaining shafts 

 dusky ; whereas in the Green Sandpiper the shafts 

 of all the quill feathers are dusky. 



Mr. Bond has obtained five specimens of the 

 Wood Sandpiper at Kingsbury Keservoir. I saw 

 one at the same place on the 4th August, 1863, just 

 after it had been killed. The person who shot it 

 told me that he had wounded another which was in 

 company with it, but not having broken a wing it 

 managed to escape. He was ignorant of the species, 

 and called them Greenshanks, but said that he had 

 several times shot such birds before at the same 

 piece of water. 



