194 BRITISH BIRDS. 



observer to approach within a few feet of it as it stands on the shore. 

 Sometimes it is flushed with difficulty, or merely contents itself with 

 running along the shore just out of arm's length. Saxby states that 

 it is an excellent swimmer, and that he has seen as many as three 

 or four in calm weather swimming at the base of the rocks on which 

 their companions were searching for food. It never seems to dive, how- 

 ever, except when wounded. Sometimes, when flushed, it has been known 

 to alight on the water several yards from shore. The food of the Purple 

 Sandpiper is composed of marine insects, small crustaceans and mollusks, 

 and the seeds of various shore-plants. It obtains most of its food as the 

 tide comes in or ebbs, usually sitting on the rocks at high water, pluming 

 itself, basking in the sun, and waiting for the sea to go down again. The 

 flight of the Purple Sandpiper is rapid, but not usually very high. Some- 

 times it skims along for a short distance, hovers in the air, or runs along 

 the ground with wings outspread over its back. The note of this bird 

 somewhat resembles that of the Common Sandpiper : it is loud, clear, and 

 shrill, and often repeated, but very difficult to express on paper a kind of 

 ince, not unlike the note of the House-Martin, but louder. 



The breeding-season of the Purple Sandpiper commences, in the Faroe 

 Islands, in the middle of May ; but further north it is later, operations 

 being postponed until summer has fairly set in. In these islands Wolley 

 found the young birds unable to fly at the end of June. It is far from 

 improbable that this bird breeds sparingly in the Shetlands. Saxby states 

 that early in spring small parties were often met with on the tops of the 

 hills several hundred feet above sea-level, and that he had eggs brought 

 to him exactly resembling authentic eggs of this species. Wolley took 

 its eggs in the Faroes, where he found it breeding sparingly on the 

 extreme tops of high mountains. One pair made their nest in the 

 centre of a colony of Skuas, whence he had the eggs in two successive 

 years. Captain Feilden found a nest on those islands on the 20th of 

 May on the fells between Thorshavn and Nordedhal. Before disco- 

 vering the nest he almost trod upon the sitting bird, which fluttered 

 along the ground, feigning lameness, trying to allure him away from the 

 spot. The nest was merely a little hollow scraped in the scanty vegetation 

 and lined with a few dried sprigs of moss. Sometimes the nest is built 

 amongst short grass, close to the shore on some elevated ground ; at others 

 it is more inland, in a marshy place on the summit of a hill. It is 

 always very slight, a small hollow, into which is scraped a little dead 

 grass, which serves as a lining. The eggs of the Purple Sandpiper are 

 four in number and remarkably handsome. They vary in ground-colour 

 from pale olive to pale buffish brown, boldly mottled, blotched, and streaked 

 with reddish brown and very dark blackish brown. On some eggs the 

 blotches are large, and chiefly distributed in an oblique direction round the 



