TOTANUS OCHROPTTS. 865 



writes : — " Several examples of this bird have been procured near Colesberg ; it is also common at Zoetendals 

 Vley in November and at the Knysna." Captain Shelley likewise procured it at Durban ; and Mr. Barratt 

 found it frequenting dams in the Leydenburg district. It is not included in Mr. Andersson's list of Damara- 

 Land birds, nor has it yet been ascertained that it strays from the east coast across the Mozambique Channel 

 to Madagascar. There is an example in the national collection from Angola ; and further north on the west 

 coast it has been obtained in Gaboon. Von Heuglin records it doubtfully from the Canaries. 



Habits — This fine Sandpiper somewhat resembles the last species in its deportment and general habits, 

 but is not so gregarious ; in fact it is for the most part found singly or in pairs, or three or four frequenting 

 the same spot in scattered company. I have generally found it very shy and difficult to get within gunshot 

 of, unless by stalking it ; and when doing this I have had experience of its very watchful nature, for it 

 would take flight before I had any idea that my murderous intentions were discovered. On forest-rivers, 

 however, I have come upon it standing beside the limpid pools, in their sandy beds, quite tame, allowing a 

 near approach before rising with its loud cry ; it would then fly off, passing down the natural avenue of stately 

 trees, and speedily realight, often returning, after being flushed again, by a circuitous flight to its first position. 

 At the Horton Plains it was exceedingly wary, and I failed to procure a specimen. Its note is a much louder 

 pipe than that of the Wood-Sandpiper, and it may be recognized from that species, especially on the wing, 

 by the contrast of its white rump and much darker tail. Its flight is swift and vigorous, the intervals of rest 

 characteristic of its aerial progress being composed of arrow-like glancings, which carry it on with great speed. 

 Like its congeners it is sedate in its movements, not running like the Stints, but proceeding hither and thither, 

 taking a few quick paces, and then stopping to pick up some insect, tiny snail, sand-fly, or earth-worm. Its 

 flesh is excellent, which cannot be said of that of the Wood-Sandpiper, which is dry and flavourless. 



Col. Irby writes of it, as observed in the Gibraltar district, that it is extremely irregular and uncertain 

 in its movements, changing its ground continually. " They fluctuate," he remarks, " greatly in numbers ; 

 days elapse without seeing a single bird, and suddenly several appear ; but they are seldom observed in any 

 greater number than two or three together ; generally they are solitary in habits, and without exception 

 frequent stones of freshwater lakes, ponds, and streams." Mr. Dresser remarks that Naumann has found in 

 "its stomach, in April, a reddish larva about as thick as a knitting-needle, and numbers of a small thread-like 

 white maggot intermixed with a greenish substance." 



Nklification. — As this species breeds in Turkestan it may possibly do so in Cashmere, Kumaon, and other 

 sub-Himalayan localities, where it has been observed far on into the season for nesting. Its eccentric habit 

 of nesting in the deserted habitations of other birds (which has probably been acquired from the circumstance 

 of its summer habitation at the time that it first came into existence having been subject to inundation) may 

 have caused its nest to be overlooked in districts where it is found in breeding-time. This abnormal nidifi- 

 cation was made known about a quarter of a century ago by a German writer, Herr Wiese, who gave an account 

 of the Green Sandpiper's nesting in Pomerania in the ' Journal fur Ornithologie,' 1855. His article was the 

 subject of a notice by Professor Newton in the P. Z. S. 1863, p. 529, from which I extract the following 

 particulars : — " In the ' Journal fur Ornithologie ' for 1855 Herr Wiese, writing on the ornithology of Pome- 

 rania, especially in the district of Coslin, says that he had first heard from an old sportsman, who knew the 

 peculiarities of all the forest-animals, that the Totanus ochropus nested in old Thrushes' nests, which infor- 

 mation, he remarks, 'I naturally did not believe;' but he states that some years after, in 1845, he 

 obtained from the same man four fine eggs of a bird of this species, which for many years had been wont to 

 nestle in an old beech tree. Still doubtful on the subject, the following spring he himself found a nest of the 

 bird on a pine which had a fork about 25 or 30 feet high. ' Joyfully,' he says, ' I climbed the tree, and 

 found in that fork four eggs on a simple bed of old moss.' In the spring of 1853 he again obtained four 

 eggs of the same species ; and on the 25th of May, 1854, he found four others placed in the old nest of a 

 Song-Thrush, out of which the shed buds of the beech had not so much as been removed." 



In the 'Journal fur Ornithologie,' 1862, Mr. Hintz, a Swedish forester, published an account of all the 

 nests which he had taken, the first having been found by him as early as 1818. These were principally the 

 old habitations of the Song-Thrush ; but some had been laid in those of the Pigeon and the Jay, one in that of 



