GREEN SANDPIPER. 241 



GREEN SANDPIPER. 



Totanus ochropus. 



The appearances of this bird are so erratic that it is im- 

 possible to say when it arrives or departs. I have myself shot 

 or seen generally single birds^ and twice three together^ in 

 April, May, August, September, October, and November, and 

 it can neither be called common nor rare. Nearly all I have 

 met with have risen from some little insignificant pond or 

 pool, dug in the meadows for the watering of the cattle. It 

 also frequents streams in woods, and the banks of rivers and 

 brooks at a distance from the sea. 



When disturbed it goes off with a flight like that of a 

 Snipe, but generally silently, though I have occasionally 

 heard it utter a triple piping note. I have never met with 

 or heard of it on the coast, and there is no known instance 

 of its breeding in Sussex. Where it does breed it is said to 

 lay its eggs in the deserted nest of some other bird, some- 

 times in a tree at a great height from the ground. Mr. 

 Knox (O. R. p. 230) makes this statement : — " In June 

 1813 I observed four on the borders of a pond through 

 which ran a clear trout stream at Cocking, near Midhurst. 

 . . . When disturbed at the pond the birds used to retire 

 into the great woods in the immediate neighbourhood.^' 

 Mr. Harting, in his 'Birds of Middlesex,' p. 175, observes 

 that it is more sluggish in its movements than the Common 

 Sandpiper, and that ''^it bores for its food, which consists 

 chiefly of small beetles, as well as spiders, very small red 

 worms, and woodlice." 



The only specimen recorded as having occurred in Sussex 

 in July is that noted by Mr. JefFery, Avho met with one near 

 Chichester, in that month in 1863. 



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