COMMON SANDPIPER. 447 



It is very generally known by the name of the Summer 

 Snipe.* 



As a rule this species will be found during the breeding- 

 season by the gravelly margins of rivers, brooks, lakes, or 

 ponds, and it is partial to islets of shingle with scanty 

 herbage, in the middle of trout -streams. Localities of this 

 description are uncommon in the south and south-east of 

 England, and there the Common Sandpiper is chiefly seen 

 on migration. It breeds sparingly on the moorland streams 

 of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and perhaps in Dorsetshire, 

 occasionally in Sussex, and it is believed to have nested in 

 Kent and in Buckinghamshire. Along the east coast, from 

 Essex to Lincolnshire inclusive, it is only a visitor on migra- 

 tion, and has not been known to breed ; but in Yorkshire 

 the country is suitable to its habits, and it nests in many 

 localities. It also rears its brood in various parts of Wales : 

 in fact, west of the Severn and north of the Trent, this 

 Sandpiper is a well-known summer resident. Across the 

 Scottish border it becomes numerous, and it is to be found 

 on almost every loch and burn throughout the mainland, 

 penetrating to the Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys, and to the 

 Shetland Islands, where Saxby found it breeding. Mr. 

 Harvie-Brown has observed a pair on Ben Chaorin, evidently 

 nesting, at the elevation of 2,700 feet ; but in these islands 

 the species generally selects lower situations, and Mr. K. 

 Gray states (B. W. Scot. p. 297), that on the banks of the 

 Clyde he has even seen it occasionally making its nest in 

 flower-pots, under bushes, and among growing plants, fre- 

 quently in turnip-fields, when previous experience had taught 

 the birds that the neighbouring banks of shingle were liable 

 to be flooded. In Ireland it is generally distributed in 

 summer, although rather less numerous than in Scotland. 



* Owing mainly to the shorter bill and feet as compared with those of allied 

 species, this and the Spotted Sandpiper have been taken out of Totanus and 

 placed in the genus Tringoides, Bp. The osteological peculiarities of the Green 

 Sandpiper have led to the erection of the genus Helodromas, Kaup ; whilst 

 the Wood Sandpiper, which ?o closely resembles it externally, has been placed 

 in the genus Rhyacophilus, Kaup. In the present work it seems expedient to 

 keep them all in the genus Totanus. 



