222 Zoological Society : — 



of trees are very frequent ; and with the Ducks of the genus Aix 

 this seems to be the normal mode of nidification. But, excepting in 

 the last case, this peculiarity in the selection of a site for the nest 

 seems to result from the particular fancy (or instinct, it may be) of 

 the individual; and in that exceptional case the general habits of 

 the birds are so essentially arboreal that we need not wonder at the 

 fact of their using trees for their nurseries as well as for their usual 

 places of lodging. The only instances parallel to the one I am going 

 to adduce are, so far as I can call to mind, those of the Golden-eye 

 {Clangida Glaiicio?i), the Goosander (Meryus Serrator), and the 

 Smew (Merffiis Albellus). Each of these three birds departs from 

 the manner of nidification which obtains among its brethren, just as 

 I shall show that the Green Sandpiper {Ilelodromas ochropusf) 

 does. 



Though I do not pretend to lay before you any novel facts this 

 evening, yet it will be, I think, admitted that hitherto we have had 

 in England but little positive information on the mode of breeding 

 of the Green Sandpiper ; such as it is, however, I will proceed to 

 notice it. First, I must say that I think the story of the nest of 

 this bird "by the side of a clay-pit" in Norfolk, as told in Mr. 

 Yarrell's 'British Birds' (vol. ii. p. 529) and in Mr. Lubbock's 

 ' Fauna of Norfolk' (p. 75), can hardly be relied on — not, of course, 

 that there is the slightest reason to doubt the implicit good faith of 

 Sir Thomas Beevor, on whose authority it appears to rest. Next 

 there is the statement contributed to the last edition of Mr. Hewit- 

 son's 'Eggs of British Birds' (ed. 3. vol. ii. p. 334*) by Mr. 

 Tristram, to the effect that he found the species breeding near slug- 

 gish streams or mountain tarns between Bodo and Quickjock in 

 Lapland. Now this particular district has since been visited by three 

 other excellent observers, to no one of whom did the Green Sandpiper 

 reveal itself. I therefore hope I may be pardoned for suggesting 

 the possibility of a mistake in my friend's assertion. 



In the ' Naumannia' for 1851 (vol. i. part 2, p. 50), Herr Passler 

 mentions that he had, through his friend the Oberforster Wiese, 

 obtained an egg of Totanus glareola, with the remark that this spe- 

 cies of Sandpiper always " nests upon a tree ;" but in the same 

 periodical for 1852 (vol. ii. part 1, p. 95) he states that Baron von 

 Homeyer had hiformed him that the egg in question was not that of 

 T. glareola, but of T. ochropus, and adds that during his stay at 

 HafF he had seen many nesting-places of this latter species ; they 

 were on the borders of '^ Elsenbriiche" [qucere, swamps of the Ser- 

 vice-tree {Pyrus domestica)1], in the middle of the forest, where the 

 trees stand upon hillocks. In the ' Journal fiir Ornithologie' for 

 1855 (vol. iii. p. 514), the above-mentioned Herr Wiese, writing on 

 the Ornithology of Pomerania, especially in the district of Coslin, 

 says that he had first heard from an old sportsman, who knew the 

 peculiarities of all the forest- animals, that the Totanus ochropus 



t The osteology of the Tringa ochropus, Linn., presents such a marked devia- 

 tion from that of the other 7'o/arei which I have examined, that I do not hesitate 

 in this case to follow Dr. Kaup in considering it the type of a distinct genus. 



