SANDPIPEES. 377 



Tail shorter than the closed wings; beak curved, 

 longer than the tarsus; rump and upper tail coverts 

 white, or with a very few brown spots ; beak and legs 

 black ; eye dark brown, about the size of a lark in the 

 body ; length about 8 in. 



Young dress : grey-brown above, below grey-white ; 

 upper part of neck pale ochre yellowish, streaked black. 



Summer dress : upper parts black, with rusty brown 

 edges; shoulders brown-grey; hinder parts black-grey; all 

 the under parts red. 



Winter dress : upper parts brown-grey, under whitish. 

 Is certainly rare everywhere, and only seen on the south- 

 ern coasts during the periods of migration. I have shot 

 them myself on the coast of Scania in August, in full sum- 

 mer dress. This is one of the few of our northern birds whose 

 eggs I never saw, nor can I hear of any one who possesses 

 a really authentic one. Baedeker, in his splendid Grerman 

 work on eggs, figures two varieties of the egg of the pigmy 

 curlew, both considerably larger than that of the dunlin, and 

 the one which I should take to be the type form, rather re- 

 sembles the egg of that bird in colouring. If it breeds any- 

 where in Scandinavia, I fancy it is on the west coast of Fin- 

 mark, probably not far inland. 



201. T. ALPINA, L. Foranderlig Strandvipa. The Dun- 

 lin. D.F. 



Length, 8 in. ; tarsus, 1 in. ; beak If in. Beak very 

 slightly curved, compressed, flattened at the tip ; 

 upper tail coverts black and grey (never white, as in 

 Schinz's sandpiper, which much resembles the dunlin, 

 if indeed it is anything more than a variety of that 

 bird) . Tail longer than the closed wings ; beak and 

 legs black. Summer dress : black above, with red- 

 brown feather edges ; a black shield on the breast; neck 

 and throat spotted ; belly and undertail coverts white. 

 Winter dress : ash grey above, with black feather 

 shafts and brown-grey shoulders; under parts white; 

 wing feathers in all seasons black. 



