218 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Allied forms. Totanus solitarius, the American representative of the 

 Green Sandpiper, which as it has occurred in the British Islands will be dealt 

 with fully in the following chapter. 



Habits. The Green Sandpiper arrives at its breeding grounds in Pome- 

 rania at the beginning of April, but in the Arctic regions it is nearly two months 

 later. The return journey commences in August, and is undertaken rather 

 slowly, and continues through September into October. The haunts of this 

 species are swamps and marshes in forests, the banks of wooded streams, and 

 lowland dykes. It is not much of a coast bird, even in winter. It is a solitary 

 species, seldom seen even in small parties except during early autumn before the 

 broods have got separated, nor does it appear to associate with other Waders. 

 Its flight is rapid and well-sustained ; and wherever there is any cover it is by 

 no means a shy bird. Its food is principally composed of insects, but small 

 worms and snails are also eaten. The note of the Green Sandpiper is a rather 

 low and musical tye-tye-tye, modulated under alarm or excitement into tyiik- 

 tyiik-tyiik. "Whether the bird has any trill during the pairing season has not 

 been recorded. 



Nidification. The breeding habits of the Green Sandpiper are remark- 

 ably interesting, inasmuch as the bird, instead of making a nest on the ground, 

 lays its eggs in trees, usually at the deserted homes of other species. In some 

 localities the eggs are laid as early as the middle of April, but they are of course 

 produced much later in higher latitudes. During the breeding season the Green 

 Sandpiper is as often to be seen in the trees and bushes as on the ground. A 

 deserted nest of a Blackbird or Thrush, a Jay, or a King Dove, or even a Crow, 

 is often selected by the female in which to deposit her eggs. As a rule old nests 

 are selected from three to twelve feet from the ground, but the eggs have been 

 taken from an old drey of a squirrel as many as thirty feet from it, whilst others 

 have been found in a hole in a fallen tree, and on the stump of a tree which had 

 either been felled or blown down. The eggs are sometimes laid in a broad fork 

 on a lodgment of drifted leaves and lichen. Almost invariably the nests or sites 

 selected are close to waters of some kind, and often in marshes. The eggs are 

 four in number (seven are on record, doubtless the produce of two pairs of birds) , 

 and vary from creamy- white sometimes tinged with olive, to pale buff in ground- 

 colour, spotted with dark reddish-brown, and underlying spots of pale greyish- 

 brown. They measure on an average T55 inch in length by 11 inch in breadth. 

 When the young are hatched the parents become very anxious, and flit about the 

 trees and bushes in a remarkable and excited manner. 



Diagnostic Characters. Helodromas, with the rump and upper tail 

 coverts white, and the axillaries brown, narrowly barred with white. Length, 

 9J inches. 



