SANDPIPERS— PLOVER 



3°3 



Wood Sandpiper. 



The wood sandpiper (T. glareola) is not always found in or near 

 a wood, but generally in extensive swamps and marshes with open 

 sheets of water, few trees, and gently sloping banks. It seems to avoid running 

 streams and to prefer the muddy shore of a pond to that of any river. The northern 

 and central regions of Europe and Asia are its breeding-area, and it is often met 

 with by the inland waters of England, Scotland, Germany, Holland, and France. It 

 ranges as far east as China and Japan, and has been found nesting in the Himalaya, 

 and on migration reaches South Africa, southern Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and 

 Australia. The wood sandpiper is a lively bird, active and easy on the wing, and 

 able not only to wade but to swim. The nest is placed close to or in a swamp, in 

 some spot difficult of access, which is generally discovered by the female flying off 



THE LITTLE RINGED PLOVER. 



when approached. It consists of a small depression lined with a little grass, and 

 contains at the end of April, or in May, four beautifully marked grey eggs, from 

 which in fifteen days the brown-spotted young are hatched. The adult bird, which 

 is over 8 inches in length, in colour is reddish brown above mottled with black and 

 white, while below it is white, the sides of the neck and the breast being greyish 

 marked with brown arrow-heads. The head is ashy brown, the upper tail-coverts 

 are white, and there is a good deal of white in the tail, the central feathers of which 

 are barred with blackish brown. 



Little The little ringed plover (JZgialitis dubica, or curonica) is one of 



Ringed Plover. a g r0U p f plovers distinguished by the straight beak, thickened by a 



cap-like elevation at the end, with the slit-like nostrils lying in the groove which 



extends from the middle to the tip. The birds of this group have generally no hind- 



