626 SCOLOPACID.E. 



name implies, frequent and obtain their living on the sandy 

 shores of the sea. These birds generally go in flocks, some- 

 times including a considerable number ; and they are remark- 

 able for the change of colour, more or less decided, forming 

 their nuptial dress, or summer plumage, produced by a partial 

 moult, and also by the assumption of colour, similar to that 

 of the new feathers, in some parts of those feathers which are 

 not changed, the birds regaining the colour of the plumage 

 of winter by the general moult which takes place in autumn. 



One of the earliest notices of the Curlew Sandpiper, or 

 Pigmy Curlew, as a British bird, occurs in Boy''s History of 

 Sandwich, in reference to a specimen shot in that neighbour- 

 hood, and Pennant refers to a second example killed in 

 August, at Greenwich. This species was formerly considered 

 to be a rare visiter to this country, but probably remained in 

 some instances undistinguished, when in its winter plumage, 

 from the Dunlin at the same season ; the beak, however, is 

 longer, rather more slender, as well as more curved ; the legs 

 longer and thinner, and the bare part above the joint of 

 greater extent : there is also a constant and marked difference 

 on the rump and in the upper tail-coverts, which in this bird 

 are invariably white, but in the Dunlin the feathers along the 

 central line of the rump and upper tail-coverts are of the 

 same colour as those of the back. In their decided summer 

 plumage, and in the various consequent vernal and autumnal 

 changes in both, the differences are very obvious, the present 

 bird changing to red underneath, and the Dunlin to black, as 

 the illustrations here inserted exhibit. 



There is reason to believe that a few pairs of this species 

 occasionally breed in this country. Mr. Gould shot a pair 

 not far from Sandwich in the perfection of their summer 

 plumage, during the last week of May 1833. I have ob- 

 tained this bird in June in the height of its summer plumage 

 from Norfolk, and have seen the young from the same 



