u6 BRITISH SEA BIRDS. 



not only in the Arctic regions of both hemispheres, 

 but in many temperate latitudes of the same ; in 

 winter it is dispersed over North Africa, Southern 

 Asia, the Southern States of America, and the 

 West Indies. At Heligoland, flocks of Dunlins 

 invariably indicate bad weather. 



PURPLE SANDPIPER. 



This species, the Tringa maritima of Brunnich and 

 most modern naturalists, but erroneously identified 

 with the T. striata of Linnaeus, by certain recent 

 writers on ornithology, is a fairly common and widely 

 distributed bird on the British coasts during autumn 

 and winter. The fact that a few odd birds are 

 sometimes met with on our shores during the 

 summer, has led to the supposition totally unsub- 

 stantiated as yet that the Purple Sandpiper may 

 breed here. During some years this species is 

 much more abundant than others, a fact perhaps 

 due to exceptionally favourable breeding seasons. 

 The Purple Sandpiper, readily distinguished from 

 all other British Limicolae by its nearly black rump 

 and upper tail coverts, the purple gloss of its 

 upper plumage, and its yellow legs makes its 

 appearance with us early in September, and continues 

 to arrive in increasing numbers during that month 

 and October, and leaves us by the following May. 

 This Sandpiper is most partial to a rocky coast, 

 where the huge boulders shelve down into the water, 

 and large masses of rock and shingle are exposed 



