250 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX. 



onour sea-shore [at Harwich], where it is sometimes found at the edge of the 

 water. * * *' Specimens have been obtained on our coast in the months of Janu- 

 ary, April, June, at the end of August and in October." Round Harwich, it is 

 now common, especially during the period of spring migration (Kerrj^). 

 [Buff-breasted Sandpiper : Tringa riifescens. 



A rare straggler to Britain from North America. There seems to be 

 no actual record of it in Essex, though the species comes very near to 

 deserving admission to our county list, as the first British specimen of 

 this American species was shot early in September, 1826, near Melbourne, 

 Cambridgeshire, in company with some Dotterel. It was skinned by 

 Mr. Baker, of Melbourne, from whom it was purchased by John 

 Sims for Mr. Yarrell {Trans. Linn. Soc, xvi. p. 109). Fifteen specimens 

 have since occurred in Britain. As Melbourne is the adjoining parish 

 to Heydon (Essex), this species certainly deserves mention here.] 



Common Sandpiper : Tn?igoides hypokucus. Locally, " Sum- 

 mer Snipe." 



Not uncommon as a passing migrant in spring and autumn, when 

 on its way to and from its breeding-grounds further to the north and 



west. I am not aware of its 

 having ever bred in Essex, and 

 Yarrell says (37. iii. 447) that 

 "along the east coast, from Essex 

 to Lincolnshire inclusive, it is 

 only known as a visitor on mi- 

 gration, and has not been known 

 to breed," though in Yorkshire it 

 breeds in many localities.* 

 .«l^^"^°' -iwt-iv^=rir-=,^^ j^jj.^ Clarke says (24) that it used to 



be " not uncommon " round Saffron 

 COMMON SANDPU'ER, t/s. Waldcu. He mentions two shot at 



Wenden on May 3rd, 1837, when they 

 may have been breeding. Several, he says, were killed in the previous Feb- 

 ruary and two at "the Roos " in 1840. Lindsey, writing of Harwich in 1851, 

 says (27. App. 50) that it "visits us in the summer, appearing in April, and 

 leaving us again by the end of September." He adds that it " is very gener^ 

 ally known by the name of the Summer Snipe." At Harwich, Mr. Kerry says 

 it is now " common in August. These are the first Waders that return to us 

 after breeding." Chas. E. Smith records (31. 52) shooting one "last spring" 



* Of the Spotted Sandpiper (Trhigdides inacularius), an American species, of doubtful occur- 

 rence in England, Edwards says {Gleanings of Natural History, p. 141) : "In the year 1743, 

 one of them was sent to me by my late worthy friend Sir Robert Abdy, Bart, who shot it near his 

 seat of Albins in Essex. This, on inspection, I found to be a hen, and it differed in no respect 

 from the American Tringa, but in being without spots on its under side, except on the throat, 

 where it had a few small longish dusky spots down the shafts of the feathers. By my remarks on the 

 drawing of the hen bird, I find that it was sent to me in the month of May, and I believe it to be 

 a bird of passage, and very rarely seen in England." Of this specimen he gives a figure (PI. 277). 

 Lewin (4. vi. 20) and Harting (38. 139) both accept this record, but it seems now to be agreed (37 ; 

 and Seebohm's Brit. Birds, iii. 123) that, although Edwards figured a genuine specimen from 

 America, the specimen from Essex was of the common species. Chas. E. Smith erroneously 

 records (31. 53) that another was " shot by a farmer bj- a small stream [in] 1S5S," near Coggeshall. 



