CURLEW SANDPIPER. 51 



their name implies, frequent and obtain their living on the 

 sandy shores of the sea. These birds generally go in 

 flocks, sometimes including a considerable number ; and 

 they are remarkable for the change of colour, more or le#s 

 decided, forming their nuptial dress, or summer plumage, 

 produced by a partial moult, and also by the assumption of 

 colour, similar to that of the new feathers, in some parts of 

 those feathers which are not changed, the birds regaining 

 the colour of the plumage of winter by the general moult 

 which takes place in autumn. 



One of the earliest notices of the Curlew Sandpiper, or 

 Pigmy Curlew, as a British bird, occurs in Boy's History 

 of Sandwich, in reference to a specimen shot in that neigh- 

 bourhood, and Pennant refers to a second example killed 

 in August, at Greenwich. This species was formerly con- 

 sidered to be a rare visitor to this country, but probably 

 remained in some instances undistinguished, when in its 

 winter plumage, from the Dunlin at the same season ; the 

 beak, however, is longer, rather more slender, as well as 

 more curved ; the legs longer and thinner, and the bare 

 part above the joint of greater extent : there is also a con- 

 stant and marked difference on the rump and in the upper 

 tail-coverts, which in this bird are invariably white, but in 

 the Dunlin the feathers along the central line of the rump 

 and upper tail-coverts are of the same colour as those of 

 the back. In their decided summer plumage, and in the 

 various consequent vernal and autumnal changes in both, 

 the differences are very obvious, the present bird changing 

 to red underneath, and the Dunlin to black, as the illustra- 

 tions here inserted exhibit. 



There is reason to believe that a few pairs of this species 

 occasionally breed in this country. Mr. Gould shot a pair 

 not far from Sandwich in the perfection of their summer 

 plumage, during the last week of May, 1833. I have ob- 



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