598 SANDERLING. 
female from the first authenticated eggs, on the Barren grounds near 
the Anderson River; while westward, the species ranges to North 
Alaska. Following up its circumpolar distribution, the bird has been 
found on the Lidkoff Islands, the Taimyr Peninsula, the Yenesei 
delta, New Siberia, Waigats, and several islands of the Spits- 
bergen group. Except in the Baltic, where it is scarce, the 
Sanderling is tolerably common on passage along the coasts of 
Europe and of the Atlantic Islands, and a certain number winter in 
the basin of the Mediterranean ; others visit Cape Colony and 
Natal, the Persian Gulf, India to Ceylon, Java, Borneo, Australia, 
the Marshall and Hawaiian Islands, the Kurils, Japan and China. 
In America, south of its summer-haunts, it is found down to 
Patagonia and Chile. 
The nest found by Col. Feilden was a depression in the centre of 
a recumbent plant of arctic-willow, on a gravel-ridge several hundred 
feet above the sea ; the eggs were greenish-buff spotted with brown, 
resembling pale specimens of those of the Curlew in miniature: 
measurements 1°4 by rin. Like the Knot, this species was feeding 
at its breeding-grounds on the buds of Saxzfraga oppositifolia and 
also on insects, but the stomachs of birds shot in this country 
generally contain slender sea-worms, small bivalves and crustaceans, 
with a little gravel. The fat on the body is sometimes nearly a 
quarter of an inch in thickness. The Sanderling is remarkably 
tame, and fairly sociable, consorting with Dunlins and other species 
which frequent sandy shores ; it may, however, be easily recognized 
by the conspicuous whiteness of its under-parts. The note is a 
shrill zwzck. 
The adult in summer-dress (represented in the foreground) has 
the feathers of the upper surface black or dark brown in their centres, 
edged or spotted with rufous and slightly tipped with grey ; a good 
deal of white at the bases of the inner primaries and along the edges 
of the greater wing-coverts ; central tail-coverts mottled like the 
back, but those on each side conspicuously white; face, neck and 
upper breast pale chestnut, spotted with dark brown; remaining 
under-parts pure white; bill black ; legs and feet dark olive (black 
in winter). Length 8 in. (bill -9), wing 4°7 in. The female is slightly 
larger than the male. By the latter part of August the rufous tints 
on the back have nearly disappeared, leaving the black markings very 
distinct ; by the end of October the upper plumage is chiefly ash- 
grey and all the under surface is white. In the young bird the upper 
feathers are black, spotted with white, and variegated with pale buff, 
traces of the last colour appearing on the sides of the neck and breast. 
