400 CHARADRIID.E TOTANUS 



fr Pelz. Orn. Sild-Afr. p. 292 (1882) ; Butler, Feilden and Reid, Zool 

 1882, p. 425. 



Totanus hypoleucus, Dresser, B. Eur. viii, p. 127, pi. 563 (1877) ; See- 

 bohm, Geogr. Distr. Charadr. p. 371, with fig. (1888) ; Shelley, B. Afr. 

 i, p. 192 (1896). 



Description. Adult in non-breeding plumage. General colour 

 above bronzy olive-brown, with slight traces of dark centres to the 

 feathers ; wing-coverts like the back but barred with blackish and 

 fringed with ashy towards the tips ; wing - quills blackish, the 

 primaries white towards the base of the inner web, the secondaries 

 with white bases and white tips, some of the inner ones almost pure 

 white ; rump, upper tail-coverts and tail like the back ; the outer 

 tail-feathers nearly white and barred with brown ; a superciliary 

 streak of white ; below white with obscure dusky streaks on the 

 sides of the face, neck and breast ; a patch of dusky-brown on either 

 side of the breast ; axillaries and upper under wing-coverts pure 

 white, lower under wing-coverts ashy-brown tipped with white. 



Iris dark brown ; bill dusky-brown ; legs and feet yellowish-ash. 



Length about 7'5 ; wing 4-20 ; tail 2-1 ; culmen TO ; tarsus 0*95. 



The sexes are alike ; in the breeding plumage the back is much 

 more clearly marked with black centres and arrow-shaped spots, 

 and below the black patches on the sides of the breast and the 

 dusky streaks are more conspicuous. Young birds are easily recog- 

 nisable by the sandy and dark cross bars to the feathers of the back 

 and the very uniform throat and breast. 



Distribution. The Common Sandpiper breeds in the northern 

 half of Europe and Asia from the British Isles to Japan, and 

 winters in Africa, Southern Asia, the Malay regions as far as the 

 Solomons, and Australia ; although it has been found during the 

 breeding season in Teneriffe and North-east Africa it is not actually 

 known to breed there. 



In South Africa it is a common bird in suitable localities through- 

 out the country during the summer months, from October to March, 

 and has occasionally been met with earlier and later, but has not 

 been known to breed. Like some of the other Sandpipers it assumes 

 its summer or breeding plumage before leaving for the north, as is 

 evidenced by an example obtained by Dr. Bradshaw near Upington, 

 on the Orange Kiver, on February 25, now in the South African 

 Museum. 



The following are the chief recorded localities : Cape Colony 

 Cape division, Paarl, March, Zoetendals vley, in Bredasdorp and 



