SANDPIPER. 65 



hypoleucus: it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of some 

 ponds near the village ; and, as it had a companion, doubtless 

 intended to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has 

 told me since, that, on recollection, he has seen some of the same 

 birds round his ponds in former summers.* 



distinguishable ; they are semi-transparent white, more or less dotted with rufous spots, which 

 usually form a zone around the large end, and are sometimes accompanied with spots of a much 

 darker colour. Not unfrequently they are a miniature resemblance of those of the robin. A spe- 

 cies almost exactly resembling this, but differing slightly in the make of the bill I have seen 

 specimens of, from Japan. 



The cbjffchaff-pettychaps (S. loquax) is the smallest of the three, and in appearance hardly 

 differs from the last, but may be always readily told by the dark colour of its legs and feet ; its 

 plumage, too, is every where half a shade darker, and the 

 wings are much shorter ; it also stands rather more up- 

 right upon the legs, with the head often sunk in the shoul- 

 ders, and the wings commonly held somewhat drooping. It 

 is everywhere a less plentiful species than the two others, 

 and does not extend so far to the north, being described not 

 to visit Scotland. Its haunts are similar to those of the 

 last, only it is rather more confined to woods, though not 

 so exclusively so as the sibilous pettychaps. I have gene- 

 rally found it to arrive about the same time as the S. me- , 



lodia, or perhaps a day or two earlier ; but, as a very few Chiffdiaff' Petti chaps. 



occasionally remain with us through the winter, its notes are sometimes heard long before. 

 There have also been instances of the warbling-pettychaps staying the winter in the west of Eng- 

 land. The song of the present species is very different from those of the others, and consists but 

 of two notes (some idea of which may be gathered from the sound tsih, tsah) repeated several 

 times continuously in monotonous succession, and occasionally, but very rarely, mingled with 

 another sound which it would be useless to attempt to express on paper ; like both the other 

 species, it occasionally sings as it flies from tree to tree. The nest is very like that of the 

 warbling pettychaps, and is placed in similar situations upon or near the ground, amid a tuft of 

 herbage ; that of S- ubilans is sometimes fixed against the trunk of a tree. The eggs are of the 

 same half-transparent white, but are marked with only a few scattered dark purplish-red spots, 

 and are not much subject to variation. It emits the same cry when the nest is approached as the 

 last species. The chiffchaff-pettychaps is the sylvia rufa of the continental naturalists, and the 

 sylvia hippolais of those of Britain which confusion in its nomenclature pretty plainly evinces, on 

 the one hand, the misleading tendency of faulty and inappropriate names (no British naturalist 

 imagining for a moment that our bird could have been designated rufa), and intimates, on the 

 other, the insufficiency of the meagre descriptions of some authors, towards the enabling their 

 readers to make out the species they intend ; for had the describers of the continental . hippolais 

 (now constituting a distinct sub-genus) merely mentioned the fact that it is a fine and splendid 

 songster, our bird would never have been supposed to be identical with it, and the latter would 

 not have been described by the continental writers as occurring in Britain. 



All the pettychaps-genus may be easily kept in confinement upon bread and milk, and crum- 

 bled bread and bruised hempseed, allowing them also as much insect-food as possible. They 

 soon become extremely tame and familiar, but in winter are very tender and impatient of 

 cold. ED. 



* The common sandpiper (totanus hypoleucus), usually called ' summer snipe" in the south of 

 England, where, however, it is much less abundant than in the northern counties and in Scot- 

 land, though still not rare. It is a pretty active little bird, perpetually in motion ; " for," as 

 Selby says, " whether running along the shore, or perched on a stone, its tail is ever moving up 

 and down, and it has also the custom (in common with other species of this genus), of nodding 

 the head, by suddenly stretching and contracting the neck." The same author correctly adds 

 that " its flight is graceful, though peculiar, being performed by a rapid motion of the pinions, 

 succeeded by an interval of rest, the wings at the same time being considerably bent, and form- 

 ing an angle with the body; in this manner it skims with rapidity over the surface of the water, 

 not always flying in a straight line, but making occasional sweeps, uttering at the same time its 



F 



