212 scolopaciDjE. 



THE SANDPIPER. 



Fresh-water Sandlark. 



Totanus hypoleucos, Linn, (sp.) 

 Tringa „ „ 



Is a regular summer visitant to the lakes, rivers, and 

 brooks throughout the island. 



It is one of the late-coming summer birds, making its appearance 

 in the north about the end of April or beginning of May. The 

 earliest note of its arrival before me is that of one which I shot 

 in Colin Glen, near Belfast, on the 21st April, 1886. On arrival, 

 they set about the great business of the season — to increase and 

 multiply; — and depart from the country soon after their brood 

 (for with one they are satisfied) can accompany them. On the 

 15th June I once found a nest and four eggs, under the shade of 

 a dwarfed willow, growing from a bank of gravel, at Ram's 

 Island, Lough Neagh; and on the 28th of the same month met 

 with another on an islet (visited by means of a eorragh) in Port- 

 lough — a small lake near the extreme north-west of Ireland ; it 

 was well concealed from view amid the surrounding herbage, and 

 contained two young birds. An unusual site was selected, some 

 years ago, by a pair of sandpipers, which built their nest in a 

 gooseberry-bush, in a garden (Mr. Grirnshaw's) contiguous to a 

 pond in the neighbourhood of Belfast. It contained four eggs 

 when the circumstance was mentioned to me. This bird nidifies 

 at the sides of streams far up in the mountains near Clonmel,* 

 and in similar localities in the southern counties of Waterford and 

 Cork. 



The chief haunt of this species in summer is about fresh water ; 

 but it has occasionally come under my notice at this season as 

 well as in autumn, along the sea -coast. On the 12th July, 1833, 

 it appeared on the Skerries, rocky marine islets off the northern 



* Mr. R. Davis. 



