By Upland Streams. 29 



But this species is by no means exclusively confined 

 to the banks and waters of the upland streams; 

 neither is it a permanent dweller in such localities. 

 It is a frequenter of our rivers and streams during 

 summer only, the season of their greatest attrac- 

 tiveness; speeding south to Africa like the Swallows 

 when autumn creeps over the uplands. From Corn- 

 wall to the Shetlands, wherever there are mountain 

 streams and upland pools we may meet with the 

 Common Sandpiper between the months of May 

 and September, but it is in the northern shires that 

 the bird becomes most abundant, say from the Peak 

 district onwards. Our experience of this engaging 

 bird has been a lifelong one. Each succeeding 

 spring we used to note its arrival in the old accus- 

 tomed haunts on the banks of the Yorkshire streams 

 and moorland pools towards the end of April. It 

 appears upon our Devonshire and Cornish waters 

 nearly a fortnight earlier, yet farther north, in the 

 Highlands, it is seldom seen before the first or 

 second week in May. The return journey varies 

 in a corresponding manner, August and September 

 marking its southern departure from the north; but 

 in the south it lingers into October, November, and 

 even December not, however, by the stream side, 

 but on the sea-shore. The persistency with which 

 this Sandpiper returns each year to certain localities, 

 and its habit of nesting in the same spot summer 



