804 SANDERLING 



ing of this species in Iceland, since they shewed that an egg which 

 had been brought thence in 1858 could hardly belong to any other. 

 In the Arctic Expedition of 1875-6 Col. Feilden (Ibis, 1877, p. 406, 

 and Nares, Voyage to the Polar Sea, ii. p. 210, pi.) found a nest 

 with two eggs, which fully agree with the rest. Thus it will appear 

 that the breeding-range of this species, so far as is at present known 

 with certainty, extends only from Iceland (say long. 15 W.) to 

 Point Barrow (say long. 155 W.), and that interruptedly, though it 

 is just possible that some part of the Arctic coast of Asia may have 

 to be included, but not that of Europe, Nova Zembla or Spits- 

 bergen. 1 In autumn the Sanderling is well known to pass south- 

 ward across, or along the coast of all the great continents, though it 

 winters in no inconsiderable numbers in temperate climes, our own, 

 for example ; but, while it reaches Patagonia in the New World and 

 the Cape of Good Hope in the Old, it seems mostly content to stay 

 on the northern margin of the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, only 

 rarely venturing to Ceylon or Burma ; and, hitherto unknown to 

 the Malay Peninsula, has been observed but on two of the islands 

 (Borneo and Java) of that Archipelago. Yet it appears on the 

 Chinese sea-board generally, and has even been obtained in New 

 South Wales, while its occurrence, perhaps more or less accidental, 

 has been recorded at spots distant enough from its true home such 

 as the Sandwich Islands, the Galapagos and the Marshall group in 

 the Pacific, the Lacdivies, Aldabra and Madagascar in the Indian 

 Ocean, and the Canaries, Madeira and Bermuda in the Atlantic, to 

 say nothing of the Antilles. Observation seems to shew that in 

 such outlying places it appears less frequently and more irregularly 

 than several of its wandering kindred, and wherever it tarries, 

 whether on passage or to winter, it rather prefers the drier sandy 

 shores, where it consorts with PLOVERS of the genus ^Egialitis, to 

 the expanses of mud or marsh that so many of its allies affect. 



The Sanderling belongs to the group Tringinaz (SANDPIPER) but 

 is always recognizable by wanting the small hind toe, a distinction 

 that justifies its generic separation, and it has long been the Calidris 

 arenaria of ornithology. 2 It undergoes a seasonal change quite as 

 remarkable as the KNOT and some others, its winter-suit being of a 

 beautiful silvery-grey, making the bird at times look almost wholly 

 white, but in spring the head, back and breast become mottled with 

 rust-colour and black, the former predominating in the form of a 

 broad edging to the feathers; but the belly and lower parts are 

 white all the year round. 



1 It is pretty obvious that there must be places in high northern latitudes 

 where the Sanderling, the Knot and several other allied species breed in 

 profusion. 



2 Linnaeus described it twice, first as a Charadrius and then as a Tringa. The 

 absence of the hallux induced many systematists to put it among the Plovers. 



