COMMON SANDPIPBE. 159 



May. In spring it stays but a few clays, but on its return in 

 autumn, which is sometimes by the last week in July, it 

 remains longer, but never very late, and the 15th September 

 is the latest date on which I have myself met with it. 



The Common Sandpiper, or Summer Snipe, may very possibly 

 have bred in the county occasionally. One instance of its so 

 doing, about May, 1885, has been communicated by the finder 

 of the nest, Mr. A. F. Hall (then at Balliol College), to 

 Mr. W. W. Fowler. The nest, a mere depression in the soil, 

 with two or three dead stalks drawn together, was on a little 

 island just past the junction of the Glyme with the Evenlode, 

 and contained the usual comj)lement of four eggs. I once saw a 

 Sandpiper on the banks of the Isis at Nuneham as late as the 

 27th May, but it showed no signs of breeding there. The 

 Messrs. Matthews observed a pair on the margin of the lake 

 in Kirtlington Park, on the ist July, 1849, which, from their 

 unwillingness to quit the spot, they were led to suppose had 

 a nest not far distant. 



The Common Sandpiper during its stay with us, frequents 

 the low shelving banks of our rivers, canal, and larger ponds. 

 A party of these little waders on a bright sjDring morning, 

 running nimbly about on some grassy bank at the water side, 

 with their delicate greyish-brown and white plumage, form as 

 pretty a sight as the ornithologist can meet with. They are 

 always in motion, their tails gently swaying up and down, 

 their heads nodding — now darting forward with a quick run 

 to pick up a worm in the grass, or wading into the shallow 

 water to snatch a morsel from the surface, and then perhaps 

 rising with their quick, shrill cry, ' weet, ^veet, ireet' to fly 

 a short distance along the stream, exposing in flight the white 

 on the wings and the barred outer tail-feathers. In stormy 

 weather, on the 3rd May, 1884, when watching through my 

 glasses a little party of half-a-dozen of these birds wliich were 

 running about with some Yellow Wagtails on the grassy bank 

 at Clattercote Eeservoir^ the wavelets lashed up by the strong 



