CHARADRIIDZ. 605 
THE COMMON SANDPIPER. 
T6éranus HypoLtucus (Linnzus). 
This species, often called the Summer-Snipe, is. a regular visitor 
to the British Islands, usually appearing in April and leaving again 
by the end of September, though a few birds occasionally remain 
till November. Inasmuch as its favourite haunts are the gravelly 
margins of. lakes or islets of shingle in running water, this Sandpiper 
is chiefly a migrant in the south-east of England ; but exceptionally 
it has nested in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Buckinghamshire, Kent, 
Sussex, and Dorset, and more freely along the moorland brooks of 
Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. In Wales, and in fact west of the 
Severn and north of the Trent, it isa well-known breeding-bird ; while 
in Scotland it is to be found on almost every loch and burn throughout 
the mainland, ranging to the Outer Hebrides, Orkneys and Shetlands. 
It is generally distributed in Ireland, except in the south-east. 
In summer this Sandpiper is plentiful from the Arctic circle. down 
to the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, and the mountains of Turkey 
and Greece, while it visits Madeira, and breeds—sparingly—in the 
Canaries, Spain, and the Mediterranean basin. In the last, how- 
ever, the species is better known in winter, at which season it 
ascends the Nile valley to Abyssinia, and can be traced along the 
entire coast-line of Africa, as well as to Madagascar &c. In Asia, 
where it is found from the Arctic circle southwards, it crosses the great 
