132 BRITISH BIRDS. 



TOTANUS GLAREOLA. 

 WOOD-SANDPIPER. 



(PLATE 30.) 



Tringa glareola, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 149 (1758) ; Omel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 677 (1788) ; 



et auctorum plurimorum (Natimann), (Schlegel), (Blyth), (Dresser), 



(Saunders), &c. 



Tringa ochropus, |3. glareola, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 250 (1766). 

 Tringa grallatoris, Mont. Orn. Diet. Suppl. App. S (1813). 

 Totanus glareola (Linn.), Temm. Man. d'Orn. p. 421 (1815). 

 Totanus affinis, Horsf. Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 191 (1822). 

 Totanus grallatoris (Mont.), Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. xii. pt. i. p. 148 (1824). 

 Rhyacophilus glareola (Linn.), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 140 (1829). 

 Actitis glareola (Linn.), Jerdon, B. India, iii. p. 697 (1864). 

 Totanus glareoloides, Hodgs.fide Jerd&n, B. India, iii. p. 697 (1864). 



The Wood-Sandpiper is a somewhat irregular straggler on spring and 

 autumn migration to the British Islands, being most frequently met with 

 on the south and east coasts of England, but sometimes at considerable 

 distances from the sea. It has only once been known to breed in England, 

 in the now drained Prestwick Car, where Mr. Hancock obtained its eggs 

 on the 3rd of June, 1853 ; and it is not improbable that similar instances 

 may have occurred elsewhere, but have escaped notice. In Scotland it 

 is of much rarer occurrence, only one example having been obtained 

 in the west ; but it has been found several times in the eastern counties, 

 and its eggs are said to have been taken near Elgin. The Wood- Sandpiper 

 has not yet been known to visit Ireland. 



The Wood-Sandpiper has a .very extensive breeding-range. It has 

 occurred in the Faroes, and is a summer visitor to the whole of Europe 

 north of the valley of the Danube, to Siberia, Turkestan, Mongolia, 

 and the extreme north of China. It probably breeds as far north as 

 land extends, as Middendorff found its nest in lat. 70 on the Taimur 

 peninsula. It winters in the basin of the Mediterranean and in suitable 

 localities throughout Africa. In Asia it winters in Persia, Beloochistan, 

 India, Ceylon, the Burma peninsula, and the islands of the Malay archi- 

 pelago, but only passes through Japan and South China on migration. 



The Wood- Sandpiper is represented on the American continent by a 

 very close, though rather longer-legged ally, the Yellow-legged Sandpiper 

 (Totanus flavipes), to which, as it has been said to have occurred in our 

 islands, the next article will be devoted. 



The Wood-Sandpiper was long confounded with the Green Sandpiper, a 

 perfectly distinct species, which, besides many other points of difference, 



