278 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



from its winter haunts, and I saw the species still in flocks in 

 the Hansag Marshes in Hungary towards the end of May. 

 They arrive still later in their northern haunts, and are not seen 

 in their Arctic breeding-grounds till early in June. Mr. Seebohm 

 writes : " I first made the acquaintance of this most interest- 

 ing bird on the fjelds of Lapland, near the Varanger Fjord in 

 1874; but in the following year I had much better opportuni- 

 ties of watching its habits in the valley of the Petchora. On 

 their first arrival, the birds were absurdly tame, allowing us to 

 approach within a few yards of them as they frequented the 

 pools formed by the rapidly-melting snow in the streets of the 

 town of Ust Zylma. A week later we found them at Haberiki, 

 thirty miles further north. They were feeding on the edges 

 of the marshes and the little forest-tarns; and after we had shot 

 one from the summit of a dead larch-tree, between sixty and 

 seventy feet from the ground, we became more reconciled to the 

 name of JF^-Sandpiper. They were excessively tame, and 

 were in full song. The note which the male utters during 

 the pairing-season is much more of a song than that of the 

 Grasshopper-Warbler, which it somehow resembles ; it is a 

 monotonous til-il-il, begun somewhat low and slow, as the bird 

 is descending in the air, with fluttering upraised wings, becom- 

 ing louder and more rapid, and reaching its climax as the bird 

 alights on the ground, or on a rail, or sometimes on the bare 

 branch of a willow, the points of its trembling wings almost 

 meeting over its head, when its feet find support. This song 

 is a by no means unmusical trill, and has an almost metallic ring 

 about it. The alarm-note of the Wood-Sandpiper is somewhat 

 like the tyii-tyii of the Red-shank, but much softer." The food 

 of the species consists of worms, insects and their larvae, and 

 small molluscs. 



Nest. According to Mr. Seebohm, the nest of the Wood- 

 Tattler is exceedingly difficult to find ; it is generally discovered 

 by accident, in consequence of the female, who is a somewhat 

 close sitter, flying off, and thus revealing the place where her 

 eggs are concealed. This is generally in open country, not 

 absolutely on swampy ground, but not very far from it ; a 

 patch of dry ground, overgrown with heath, sedges, and coarse 

 grasses, is generally selected, frequently not far from a few 

 stunted willow-bushes, on which the bird frequently alights, 



