42 



BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPER. 



Tringa platyrhyncha, GOULD. TEMMINCK. 



Tringa ? Platyrhyncha. Flatus - Broad. 



RunchosA. beak, or bill. 



EYEN on the continent this appears to be a rather rare 

 species, but it has been met with in the north in Norway 

 and Lapland, as well as southwards in Germany, Italy, and 

 France, likewise in Switzerland, according to Schinz, a naturalist 

 whose great merits appear to me to be by no means so well 

 known in this country as they should be. According to M. 

 Temminck it is also found on several of the islands of the 

 Indian Archipelago Borneo, Sumatra, and Timor, for instance. 



With us one was killed in Norfolk, upon one of the flats 

 at Breydon Broad, near Yarmouth, on the 25th. of May, 

 1836; and one near Shoreham, Sussex, in October, 1845, as 

 recorded in the 'Zoologist,' page 1394, by W. Borrer, Esq. 



In Ireland it has once been obtained near Belfast. 

 They are wild and shy in their habits, except towards 

 the nesting time, when their manners entirely change, and 

 they skulk about in the neighbourhood, and if they fly at 

 all soon settle down again. They keep together in small 

 colonies, and frequent the borders of small pools and lakes 

 in the midst of wild morasses, where they are but seldom 

 able to be detected, and these even on very elevated ground, 

 as much as three thousand feet above the level of the sea. 

 They mix on the shore with other species. 



If disturbed at ordinary times, they soar to a great height 

 in the air. 



The note resembles the syllables 'too who,' quickly repeated. 



It is late in laying its eggs; they have been found not 

 yet sat upon on the 24th. of June, and the young still 



