440 SANDPIPERS AND RELATED SPECIES 



leaf or rushes, etc. Five eggs have occasionally been found, and three only in 

 second layings. The ground-colour ranges from creamy to warm buff, speckled and 

 spotted rather irregularly with different shades of sienna-brown and with underlying 

 ashy shellmarks. (PL L.) Average size of 66 eggs, 1'4 x T01 in. [35-6 x 25'8 mm.]. 

 Two eggs hatched in an incubator on the 22nd day (W. Evans), though Naumann 

 assigns two weeks only to this species. Whether the male assists the female in 

 incubation is apparently not recorded. The eggs are not laid on consecutive 

 days, and may generally be found in the second or third week of May in England 

 and a week or two later farther north; but second layings may be found till late 

 in June in Scotland, and even in July in Lapland. Only one brood is reared 

 in the season, though two, if not three, sets of eggs may be laid if the first are 

 destroyed, [r. c. E. j.] 



5. Food. At inland nesting-places insects, chiefly flies and their larvae 

 (they are especially fond of larvae of Ephemeridce ; Slater, British Birds, their Nests 

 and Eggs, v. p. 151) small worms, and fresh-water shrimps ; on the shore, the 

 smaller thin-skinned crustaceans and small worms. The young feed chiefly on 

 insects, especially flies and their larvae. They are accompanied and no doubt 

 aided in their search for food by both parents, [w. F.] 



WOOD-SANDPIPER [Totanus gldreola (Linnaeus); Totanus gldreola 

 (Gmelin). Autumn-snipe (Kent). French, chevalier sijlvain ; German, 

 Bruchwasserldufer ; Italian, piro-piro boschereccio]. 



i. Description. The wood-sandpiper may be readily distinguished by the 

 dark olive-green colour of the upper parts, the white upper tail-coverts, the heavily 

 barred tail, and the white under wing and axillaries. The sexes are alike, and 

 there is a slight seasonal change of coloration. (PL 128.) Length 8*5 in. 

 [215*9 mm.]. The adult in nuptial dress is of a dark olive-green above, heavily 

 striated on the crown and neck, and spotted on the back and wings with white. 

 The lower back and rump are olive-green, and the upper tail-coverts white. The 

 middle tail feathers are marked by six transverse bars of olive-green on a white 

 ground ; the outermost are white, with a row of irregular olive-green spots along 

 the edge of the outer web. The tail is slightly pointed. The remiges are of a dark 

 olive-green, almost black, and the shaft of the outermost quill is white. The under 

 parts are white ; but the side of the head, the forepart of the neck, and the fore- 

 breast are striated with olive-grey, while the upper border of the flanks is heavily 



