SANDPIPER. GRALLATORES. TOTANUS. 83 



are nearly able to fly. If discovered, and attempted to be 

 caught before being fully fledged, they boldly take to the 

 water, repeatedly diving, and to a considerable distance; a 

 provision wisely granted, as being so well adapted to insure 

 their safety in the unfledged state. After the young have 

 gained sufficient strength, these birds prepare for their au- 

 tumnal or equatorial migration, and by the end of Septem- 

 ber the greater part of them have quitted the kingdom. 

 They retire to the warmer parts of Continental Europe, to 

 Asia, and to Africa ; but Dr LATHAM appears to be in er- 

 ror when he states it as a species common to America, for it 

 is not recognised by WILSON, or by other American orni- 

 thologists. Its place in that country is supplied by another 

 closely allied species, viz. Totanus macularius (Spotted 

 Sandpiper). In BEWICK^S admirable work a description and 

 figure are given of a bird which he thought was the Tr'mga 

 macularia of authors, but it approaches, in every respect, so 

 closely to the young of the Common Sandpiper, that I can- 

 not help thinking he must have mistaken the species. At 

 all events, his bird could not have been an adult Spotted 

 Sandpiper , as neither the figure nor description give an idea 

 of the peculiar spotting of the whole of the under parts, so 

 distinctive of both the male and female of that species. In 

 Totanus hypoleucos and Totanus macularius the furrow ex- 

 tends for more than two-thirds of the length of the upper 

 mandible, and the bill is not quite so much rounded near 

 the tip, as in the preceding species of this genus ; in these 

 particulars shewing their affinity to the genus Tringa. The 

 food of these birds consists of the worms and insects usually 

 found in the localities they frequent. 



PLATE 15. Fig. 3. Represents the Common Sandpiper of 



the natural size. 



Between the bill and eyes is a dark hair-brown patch, and General 

 over the eyes is a white streak. Head and upper parts t io^ np 

 of the body of a lightish hair-brown colour, glossed with . d " lfc 



