BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPER. 199 



they were neatly rounded hollows, lined with a few bits of dry grass. 

 Sometimes the sitting bird ran from the eggs, sometimes she flew from 

 them ; and if incubation had advanced she returned to her charge even 

 while the nest was surrounded by men. 



Equally interesting are the notes on the breeding of this bird which 

 Mr. Richard Dann communicated to Yarrell's ' British Birds/ written 

 during his visits to Norway. He found it at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, 

 in grassy morasses and swamps, in small colonies, generally in places 

 frequented by the Wood- Sandpiper. He also met with it breeding on the 

 Dovrefjeld, in the great swamp of Fokstuen, three thousand feet above the 

 level of the sea, a locality whence nearly all the eggs of this bird in collec- 

 tions have been obtained. It arrived at its breeding-grounds about the end 

 of May, and was at first very wild and shy, obtaining its food on the grassy 

 margins of the pools and lakes in the swamps. When disturbed, it soared 

 for a considerable height, rising and falling like a Snipe, and uttering notes 

 resembling two woo, rapidly repeated. As the season advanced and the 

 weather became warm the bird's habits changed remarkably : it skulked 

 in the dead grass, creeping through the herbage, and when flushed dropped 

 again almost directly. Mr. Dann found fresh eggs on the 24th of June ; 

 and during the last week of July the young birds were unable to fly. The 

 nest was placed on a tuft of grass, and resembled that of a Snipe. When 

 the young were hatched the old birds were flushed with difficulty, and 

 spent most of their time on the ground, skulking with their broods 

 amongst the luxuriant vegetation of the morasses. 



The eggs of the Broad-billed Sandpiper were also obtained by Mr. 

 Mitchell, in the latter locality, during the last half of May 1873. He 

 found several nests in an open part of the marsh, and noticed that the 

 lining was similar in colour to the eggs, the dark varieties being laid on 

 withered leaves of the mountain-willow and the lighter ones on dead grass. 

 He states that the nests were better built than is usually the case with 

 Sandpipers, the hole being scratched deeper and more carefully lined. 

 The old birds sat very closely, not leaving the nest until almost trodden 

 upon. Collett also found the Broad-billed Sandpiper breeding in these 

 extensive swampy tracts of the Dovrefjeld. He met with it for several 

 successive seasons inhabiting the tracts of marshy ground which were 

 sparsely overgrown with sedge. One of the nests which he found on the 9th 

 of June contained four slightly incubated eggs, and was built in the most 

 swampy part of the ground. The parent birds kept in the vicinity, and 

 exhibited considerable anxiety for their eggs. 



The eggs of the Broad-billed Sandpiper are four in number, huffish 

 white in ground-colour, thickly mottled and spotted with rich chocolate- 

 brown and numerous small underlying markings of violet-grey. Some 

 eggs are so thickly marked as to conceal most of the ground-colour; 



