THE SANDPIPER. 215 



Sir Win. Jardine, when writing his ' History of British Birds/ 

 was not aware, either on the authority of others or his own, 

 that the sandpiper visited any of the Scottish islands."* In the 

 1 Historia Naturalis Orcadensis/ however, published in 1848, 

 we have the statement that it "has been observed in several 

 islands, as in Sanday, in Hoy, and in various parts of the main- 

 land [of Orkney]/' It is added that the bird appears to be only 

 an occasional visitant to that group. When in Islay, in 1849, I 

 was pleased to learn that the sandpiper breeds annually about the 

 lakes of the island. On particularly cpiestioning the gamekeeper 

 respecting it and the dunlin, and showing him figures of the two 

 species, he stated that the latter was unknown to him as breeding 

 there ; but that a pair or two of the T. hypoleucos came every 

 summer to each of the two small lakes on the moor above Ardi- 

 mersy Cottage, and, he had no doubt, to the other lakes of 

 Islay also. 



Eggs of the bird, obtained there since the preceding was 

 written (and kindly sent to me by Robert Langtry, Esq.), have 

 proved the correctness of my informant as to the species. 



Of all our summer birds of passage, the sandpiper, so attractive 

 from its beautifully bronzed plumage, lively motions, loud piping 

 note, and graceful curving flight, is the most widely dispersed, 

 and the least choice as to locality ; a mere sufficiency of water, 

 in any form, being apparently the only essential to its presence. 

 In the petty tarns situated amid the sublime scenery of our 

 lofty mountains, as at Lough Salt, in Donegal ; on the low and 

 extensive shores of our three greatest lakes, — Loughs Neagh, 

 Erne, and Corrib, — around the richly-wooded and rocky shores 

 of Killarney, as well as about lakes of every intermediate size 

 and physical character, I have remarked this species. It is also 

 found at the lofty source of our springs and brooks, — in the beds 

 of rocky torrents and gently flowing streams, and along the banks 

 of the largest rivers, until, in their gathered might, they move 

 majestically to mingle with the ocean. Here again, on shores of 



* Vol. iii. p. 217. 



