6 The Bird Life of an Outer Island. [Sess. 



consigned to the limbo of the unauthenticated ; but we are 

 inclined to think, humbly as befits men who make no claim 

 to being ornithologists (by the way a synonymous term for 

 egg- collectors), that the former statement as to the Purple 

 Sandpipers' habit of retreating to the hills is worthy of some 

 attention — might indeed, to put it colloquially, have some- 

 thing in it. I regret that, except to record a fresh example of 

 this habit, we can carry the matter little further. For one 

 thing, the demeanour of the birds was decidedly discouraging 

 — perhaps I should also say puzzling. I don't know just 

 exactly how a breeding Purple Sandpiper ought to behave 

 when disturbed at its nesting quarters, but the impression the 

 birds we saw made upon us was not that of anxious, solicitous 

 nest-owners. They had the most confiding and perplexing 

 way of running round us almost at arm's length, so that we 

 could make quite certain of their identity, note the purplish 

 black back and the white abdomen and the yellow legs ; 

 indeed, had we been impolite enough, we might have noticed 

 that the tarsus is shorter than the middle toe, but as we were 

 not, I can only say it is so on the authority of greater men ; they 

 would also pretend to feed, and at frequent intervals they 

 would stop in their tracks and preen their coverts, and by 

 every look and gesture express entire indifference to our 

 presence. Never once did we see any sign, any antic, that 

 might have been interpreted as a clue to the ownership of 

 either a nest or young ; and although we searched diligently, 

 we found nothing that could be considered, even in the 

 wildest flights of C.'s imagination, a nest or a nest- depression 

 in that stony wilderness ; it would have been surprising if 

 we had. During our June sojourn we saw the birds as late 

 as 21st June, and this year we saw a solitary bird on the 

 top of a neighbouring island as late as 13 th July. It was as 

 exasperatingly tame as all the others, and after we had watched 

 it for some time, hoping against hope, my brother turned the 

 camera upon it, to find, in disgust, timidity suddenly asserting 

 itself and the Sandpiper almost out of sight. We might have 

 hazarded the theory that those Purple Sandpipers, which 

 forego the northern journey and elect to summer it along the 

 fringes of our coast, perhaps retire inland merely in deference 

 to some inherent inclination, and that once there they find 



