BEOAD-BILLED SANDPIPER. 3 



work. The marshes where the Broad-billed Sandpiper are to be found are few and 

 far between, they are soft and full of water, and often, every step is a struggle, 

 whilst the swarms of hungry gnats require almost indi\ddual attention. The sun 

 is scorching at mid-day, but at midnight has not enough power to keep away an 

 unpleasant chill. The country to be gone over is of vast extent, the egg season 

 very short ; sleep is seldom attainable, a feverish feeling comes on, and present 

 enjoyment soon ceases 



" It is just when the thickest clouds of gnats rise from the water (which is 

 so generally spread over the recently thawed land), that the Broad-billed 

 Sandpiper has its eggs, and this is just before midsummer, about the third week 

 in June. 



" Many empty nests are found for one that is occupied, and I suppose them 

 to be nests of former years, for the moss in which they are usually worked, long 

 retains any mark made in it, being hard frozen for more than half the year ; they 

 are neatly rounded hollows, and have a few bits of dry grass at the bottom. The 

 bird sometimes flics, and sometimes runs, off her eggs ; and if she has sat for a 

 day or two, she will come back even whilst men are standing all around. The 

 eggs are usually very deeply and richly coloured when fresh, but they fade sadly 

 soon after they are blown." 



The late H. W. Wheelwright, who found a nest of this species in Lulea 

 Lapland, writes as follows * : — " Of all the Sandpipers, this certainly is the most 

 unobtrusive and shyest in its habits ; and its custom of creeping among the grass 

 like a little mouse, causes it to be very seldom seen. When flushed, which is 

 never until you nearly tread upon it, it rises with a faint single call-note, flies for 

 a very little distance, then suddenly drops, and it is next to impossible to get it 

 up a second time without a dog. I only found one nest of this Sandpiper. It 

 was in a high fell meadow, where I obtained so many of the Lap Buntings, and I 

 shot both old birds. The eggs were four, very pyriform ; ground colour, grey 

 brown, covered all over with minute spots of light umber-brown, nearly hiding 

 the ground colour ; size, 1^ in. by f in." 



Mr. F. S. Mitchell, in his notes on " A Spring Tour in Norway," gives the 

 following details respecting the nidification of this Sandpiper f: — "On the 

 morning of June 9th we had started from Fokstuen station-house for an 

 exploration of the hills on the other side of the marsh, and had not left it half- 

 an-hour when a little Sandpiper, that I did not recognize, got up from under my 



* ' A Spring and Summer in Lapland,' by " An Old Bushman," pp. 354, 355. 

 t 'Zoologist,' 1877, p. 204. 



