12 MABSH 8ANDPIPEB. 



and, although occasionally met with on passage in Sardinia, it has 

 very seldom been noticed in Spain and France. Dr. Naumann, 

 writing from his own experience in 1850, did not consider it very 

 common in Hungary. He says: ^It comes thence solitarily to 

 the south of Germany, but very seldom to the central part, and 

 still more rarely to Anhalt.' Occasionally it has been killed on 

 the river Wulfen by his brother. Once he shot the female, and in 

 1835 a pair brought out young ones in that locality. They appeared 

 on the shallow water which remained on the morasses after the dry 

 summer. He killed one on the S5th. of June of that year. It 

 was, however, only just fledged, which induced him to spare the 

 others. The brood consisted of four young. 'This is the only 

 instance known to me,' he observes, 'of the appearance of this rare 

 bird in Anhalt.' 



" The most northern point in Europe at which this bird has been 

 procured is, as before stated, Heligoland, where a single example 

 was met with by Herr Gatke on the 7th. of May, 1862. Beyond 

 Europe the Marsh Sandpiper has a very extensive range. In the 

 cold season it is not uncommon in some parts of India, frequenting 

 young rice fields, open marshy spots, aud the bare edges of tanks. 

 In China it is less frequently met with, although Mr. Swinhoe 

 procured a specimen at Formosa, and solitary examples have occa- 

 sionally been forwarded from Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and other 

 islands of the Malay Archipelago. Even in Australia it is not 

 altogether unknown, Mr. Gould having shot a specimen on the banks 

 of the lower Mokai on the 16th. December, 1839. 



"Numbers of these birds spend the winter in Africa, and appear to 

 spread over the greater portion of that vast continent; for not only 

 are the flocks met with in Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia, immediately 

 south of their summer quarters, but they pass down even to Natal 

 and Cape Colony, while on the west and south-west coast examples 

 have been procured in Ashantee, Gambia, and Damaraland. 



"The name of Marsh Sandpiper is well bestowed, for, although the 

 bird is occasionally found by the river side, its favourite haunts are 

 in the marsh, and upon the flat shores of lakes and pools. Its 

 actions are very sprightly, its walk and flight rapid — the latter, 

 according to Naumann, almost swallow-like. On the wing, he says, 

 its movements resemble those of other Sandpipers, and, like them, it 

 only extends its wings fully outwards and downwards when sailing 

 horizontally through the air for a short distance without closing the 

 wings, as it does, for instance, when uttering its call-note in the 

 breeding season. This is very different from its action while shooting 



