658 SCOLOPACIM. 



Major Franklin, B. Hodgson, Esq., and Mr. Blyth have 

 found specimens in different parts of India. Dr. Horsfield 

 includes it in his Catalogue of the Birds of Java, and M. 

 Temminck says that the great numbers of this species 

 killed at Java, Sumatra, at Timor, and Japan, proves that 

 it is there a migratory bird over these islands. This species 

 is not found on the continent of North America, though 

 it has been sometimes so stated. 



The beak of the Common Sandpiper is dark brown to- 

 wards the point, pale yellow brown at the base ; the irides 

 dusky brown ; from the beak to the eye a brown streak, 

 over that, over the eye, and over the dark-coloured ear- 

 coverts, a light-coloured streak ; the top of the head, back 

 of the neck, the whole of the wing-coverts, the back, upper 

 tail-coverts, and the four central tail-feathers, greenish 

 brown, with a dusky greenish black stripe across the centre, 

 and along the line of the shaft of each feather ; wing-pri- 

 maries almost black, with a greyish white patch on the 

 inner web of all but the first ; the secondaries tipped with 

 white ; the tail graduated, the central feathers being the 

 longest, and all twelve barred with greenish black ; the four 

 outer tail-feathers on each side tipped with white ; the two 

 outer tail-feathers on each side with the outer webs white, 

 barred with greenish black ; the chin white ; the sides of 

 the neck and the upper part of the breast streaked with 

 dusky black, on a ground colour of pale ash ; the lower 

 part of the breast and all the other parts of the under 

 surface of the body of a delicate and uniformly unspotted 

 white, hence the systematic specific name of the bird ; the 

 legs and toes ash green ; the claws brown. 



The whole length of the bird is seven inches and a half. 

 From the carpal joint to the end of the wing, four inches 

 and a quarter ; the first quill -feather the longest. 



Young birds of the year have the front of the neck 



