CURLEW SANDPIPER. 241 



rump, its different call betrays it if at a distance. 

 Spring, autumn, and winter, are the seasons when 

 it is generally met with, though there seems to he 

 evidence of the bird occasionally breeding with us. 

 Mr. Yarrell states having obtained this bird in 

 June, in the height of its summer plumage, from 

 Norfolk, and having seen the young, from the same 

 locality, in July. It has been in the autumn, after 

 their return from breeding, that we have met wkh 

 it on our shores, and have killed it on both sides of 

 the Sol way, either in small parties, or mixed with 

 the Purre, or feeding by some muddy streams, in a 

 salt marsh which they seemed fond of frequenting, 

 and, when come upon unawares, would utter a 

 shrill lengthened whistle, very different from that 

 of the Purre under similar circumstances. In Ire- 

 land, Mr. Thompson considers it as a regular sum- 

 mer visitant. It inhabits also Northern Europe and 

 America, extending there from the Arctic Circle 

 even to the southern boundary. The East Indian 

 Islands are given to it by Temminck, and the Zoolo^ 

 gical Society have specimens from Tangiers.* 



Specimens killed on the shores of the Solway, in 

 autumn, have the head and neck hair-brown, shad- 

 ing into dark clove-brown on the back and wings, 

 each feather in the first being darker in the centre, 

 and on the latter, together with the tertials and 

 coverts, being broadly edged with yellowish-white ; 

 the rump and upper tail-coverts pure white ; the 

 tail itself hair-brown, the feathers tipped and edged 

 * Yarrell. 



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