CHAP. XIX. 



SANDERLING. 



229 



peculiarly interesting to us. We had scarcely hoped to come 

 across them. We saw no evidences, however, of their breed- 

 ing upon the island ; they seem to have settled upon it 



and autumn, when great numbers pass 

 along our shores on their passage to 

 and from their breeding-grounds. They 

 usually arrive during August and leave 

 us again towards the end of May. This 

 interesting wader breeds so far north 

 that its eggs are almost unknown in 

 collections. When we visited the 

 Petchora, properly authenticated eggs 

 of this species were absolutely un- 

 known. Eggs, said to be those of the 

 sanderling, had been obtained in Iceland 

 and in Arctic America, but it was not 

 until 1876 that all doubt upon the 

 subject was removed. In the Appendix 

 to Nares' ' Voyage to the Polar Sea ' 

 (vol. ii. p. 210) Captain Fielden, the 

 naturalist to the expedition, gives the 

 following account of the breeding of 

 the sanderling, which is illustrated by 

 an excellent chrome-lithograph of the 

 eggs of that bird. "I first observed 

 the sanderling in Grinnell Land on 

 June 5th, 1876, Hying in company 

 with knots and turnstones ; at this 

 date it was feeding like the other 

 waders on the buds of Saxifraga oppo- 

 sitifolia. This bird wa^> by no means 

 abundant along the coasts of Grinnell 

 Land ; but I observed several pairs in 

 the aggregate, and found a nest of this 

 species containing two eggs, in lat. 

 82 33' N. on June 24th, 1876. This 

 nest, from which I killed the male 

 bird, was placed on a gravel ridge, at 

 an altitude of several hundred feet 

 above the sea ; and the eggs were 



deposited in a slight depression in the 

 centre of a recumbent plant of willow, 

 the lining of the nest consisting of 

 a few withered leaves, and some of the 

 last year's catkins. August 8th, 1876, 

 along the shores of Robeson Channel, 

 I saw several parties of young ones, 

 three to four in number, following 

 their parents, and, led by the old birds, 

 searching most diligently for insects. 

 At this date they were in a very inte- 

 resting stage of plumage, being just 

 able to fly, but retaining some of the 

 down on their feathers." The eggs of 

 the sanderling, as figured by Captain 

 Fielding, are miniature eggs of the less 

 strongly marked varieties of the curlew, 

 and are of the same size as the eggs of 

 the lesser tern. This discovery of a 

 breeding-place of the sanderling at the 

 extreme northern limit of animal life 

 on the shores of the polar basin, a 

 little to the west of Cape Union, is one 

 of the most interesting additions to the 

 history of British birds which has 

 recently been made. There can be 

 little doubt that the distribution of 

 this bird during the breeding season 

 is circumpolar, since in winter the 

 sanderling is found on both coasts of 

 the American continent as far south as 

 Chili and Brazil. It is very common 

 in Africa in winter down to the Cape, 

 and in Asia it has been found during 

 the cold season, on the coasts of India 

 and China. 



