218 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
COMMON SANDPIPER. 
TOTANUS HYPOLEUCUS (Linnzus). 
Sand Snipe, Summer Snipe. 
As a rule the Common Sandpiper arrives at its 
breeding-grounds in Cheshire during the last ten 
days of April; but in 1896, Oldham saw a pair on the 
Mersey at Marple on the 19th, and in 1898 a solitary 
bird at Bosley Reservoir on the 11th of that month. 
Throughout the summer it abounds on all the streams 
and reservoirs in the Hill Country, and is not un- 
common on many of the meres and rivers of the 
Plain. <A few pairs breed on the marshes at Thornton- 
le-Moors, Ince, and Helsby,! but the bird is not often 
met with in Wirral, where Brockholes believed its 
numbers had decreased.? It is still found at Burton ;1 
and on the 16th of May 1894, we flushed a bird from 
a pool behind the Leasowe Embankment. Mr. W. Bell 
informs us that it has nested near Woodchurch. 
In the Plain the Sandpiper frequents the larger streams. 
We have met with it in summer on the Dee between 
Farndon and Chester. Several pairs nest annually on 
the Bollin between Wilmslow and Warburton, and on 
the Dane below Holmes Chapel, whilst a few even rear 
their broods on the banks of the polluted Mersey between 
Stockport and its confluence with the Irwell. One or 
two pairs breed on most of the meres and larger pools, 
where it is interesting to see a bird, usually associated 
in one’s mind with a brawling stream in the hills, per- 
fectly at home as it runs about on the lily-pads float- 
! Dobie, op. cit. p. 338. * Brockholes, op. cit. p. 12. 
