GREEN SANDPIPER. 597 



return. On the twenty-third of July he told me that he 

 had seen six together, and on the twenty-sixth of the 

 same month I found them near the place he had men- 

 tioned. By creeping on my hands and knees, I obtained 

 a good view of them as they walked about on a mud bank, 

 and believe from the duller look of the plumage of some, 

 that they were two old birds with a brood of young ones. 

 They appear to separate soon after their arrival, or to 

 unite for a day or two as fancy leads them." 



The authors of the catalogue of Norfolk and Suffolk 

 birds, say, " we cannot positively affirm that this species 

 breeds here, though it seems probable that it sometimes 

 does so, as five Green Sandpipers were constantly found 

 one summer near the old decoy at Levington in Suffolk."" 

 Mr. Salmon believes that the Green Sandpiper breeds in 

 Norfolk. It has been killed in Cambridgeshire in May 

 and in August. The specimen from which the figure at 

 the head of this subject was drawn, was given me by my 

 friend Thomas Wortham, Esq. of Royston, who shot it at 

 Bassingbourne Spring in Cambridgeshire, a favorite locality, 

 where several other examples have been killed. The bird 

 is seen in these eastern counties throughout the winter. 



Mr. Blyth considers that the Green Sandpiper breeds in 

 Surrey, having seen a very young one shot near Godal- 

 ming with its primary quill-feathers incompletely deve- 

 loped. The same observer saw both adult birds and young 

 broods of three or four birds each in the first week of 

 August 1837, frequenting muddy water courses on a small 

 salt-water marsh near Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, 

 and has known one specimen to have been killed in Feb- 

 ruary. It is not uncommon along the whole line of the 

 southern marine counties from Romney Marsh in Kent, to 

 Sussex, Hampshire, and thence to the Land n s End. Mr. 



