COMMON SANDPIPER. 627 



This bright and cheerful little bird is a summer visitant, 

 generally arriving about the third week in April, and from 

 then to May ; the earliest date of its spring appearance of 

 which we have note was at Settle on Qth April 1894 (Nat. 1896, 

 p. 47) ; a late migration took place at Spurn in 1881, when 

 from I4th to 20th May small flocks were observed passing 

 along the coast to the northward. It occasionally visits the 

 Tees marshes at this season, soon, however, making its way 

 to its breeding haunts by the sides of the lakes, reservoirs, 

 rivers, and tributary streams in the dales of the west and 

 north-west of the county ; at this period, as also in autumn, 

 it may be noted in many unusual localities while on passage. 

 It is enumerated amongst the list of casualties at the coast 

 beacons, and a female specimen, killed at Spurn Lighthouse 

 in May 1899, is in the Yorkshire Philosophical Society's 

 Museum at York. 



This Sandpiper is a characteristic and familiar bird of our 

 sub-alpine streams, local in its distribution, and occurs more 

 frequently in the higher reaches of the valleys running towards 

 the west and north-west than elsewhere, though it breeds 

 not uncommonly in the lower portions of the North and West 

 Riding dales, including those of Cleveland, where I have 

 found it very abundant on the moorland reservoirs ; it also 

 nests in the neighbourhood of Whitby and Scarborough. 



At Flamborough it is frequently seen both in spring and 

 autumn, while in East Yorkshire generally it is a regular 

 visitor at these periods, frequenting the margins of the river 

 Hull and its tributaries, and may be met with on all the drains 

 and running streams with low shelving shores where it can 

 run and wade at leisure. 



After the breeding season the Common Sandpiper departs 

 in July or August, a few lingering on the coast marshes and 

 on the shore until September ; I have observed it at the 

 Teesmouth as late as the 23rd ; on Swinsty Reservoir one was 

 seen on the 27th of that month ; and it has been noted as late 

 as 4th October, in 1892, near Beverley. 



In Yoredale the nest has been found in the woods near 

 Masham, at two hundred yards' distance from a stream, 



