662 SCOLOPACmZE. 



M. Nilsson, in his Fauna of Scandinavia, says that this 

 bird comes often into the North of Europe, and that speci- 

 mens have been killed in the south of Sweden, on the 

 islands in the Baltic, and in Gottland. M. Temminck 

 states that it has been killed in Germany and on the 

 banks of the Rhine, but not in Holland. Messrs. Meyer 

 and Wolf, and M. Brehm, include it in their Birds of 

 Germany. 



The Spotted Sandpiper is a common bird in the United 

 States,* where, however, it is only a summer visitor, going 

 southward in October. During the breeding-season it in- 

 habits the banks of rivers and lakes, where its actions, 

 habits, and food, are observed to accord so closely with 

 those of our Common Sandpiper in this country, as to 

 make quotation from American authorities unnecessary. 

 One extract from Mr. Audubon's Ornithological Biogra- 

 phy I hope to be excused from copying, because it refers 

 to a power possessed by birds which has been doubted; 

 that of being able to move their eggs when danger threatens. 

 " My esteemed friend Thomas Macculloch, of Pictou, 

 Nova Scotia, having transmitted to me a curious account 

 of the attachment of one of these birds to her eggs, I here 

 insert it with pleasure. ' Being on an excursion to the 

 Hardwood Heights, which rise to the west of Pictou, my 

 attention was attracted by the warble of a little bird, 

 which appeared to me entirely new, and which proceeded 

 from a small thicket a short way off. Whilst crossing an 

 intervening meadow, I accidentally raised a Spotted Sand- 

 piper from its nest, and having marked the spot, I hastened 

 forwards; but the shyness of the object of my pursuit 

 rendered all my efforts unavailing, and returning to the 

 nest I had just left, I expected to find it still unoccupied ; 



* Mr. Audubon says this species has a very extensive range; from 

 Labrador even to Texas. 



