CHARADRIID&. 611 
THE SOLITARY SANDPIPER. 
Totanus souirdrius (Wilson). 
A specimen of this American species was recorded by Robert 
Gray in ‘The Ibis’ for 1870 (p. 292), as having been killed some 
years previously on the banks of the Clyde. In ‘ The Zoologist’ 
for 1882 (p. 432), Mr. T. Cornish stated that on September 21st of 
that year, an example, now in the collection of Mr. Dorrien Smith, 
was shot in the Scilly Islands; and he subsequently identified 
another (Zool. 1885, p. 113) which was obtained in a marsh near 
Marazion in Cornwall in October 1884, according to the sale- 
catalogue of Vingoe’s collection (May 13th 1889). These have 
been identified by competent authorities. 
In America the “ Wood-Tattler,” as the bird is often called, 
appears to be generally distributed during the breeding-season 
from the vicinity of the Arctic circle to about lat. 44° N., and 
from the Atlantic to the Lower Yukon in Alaska. Many orni- 
thologists have obseryed it in summer, and Mr. Nelson has taken 
the young when just able to fly in Illinois; yet nothing appears 
to be known of its nidification, for the description given by the 
late Dr. Brewer of an egg taken in Vermont and ascribed to this 
species indicates a probability of error; while the story in ‘The 
Auk,’ 1898, p. 328, of the bird being flushed (but not obtained) 
near Lake Ontario, from 5 eggs “with grotesque brown figurings 
somewhat similar in shape to those found on the eggs of the Purple 
Grackle,” can hardly be considered conclusive. The spring arrival 
of the Solitary Sandpiper in the United States takes place in May, 
while the return passage begins in July in the northern districts, and 
even in the south few birds remain after October. On migration 
South Greenland, the Bermudas, the Antilles, Mexico, Central 
America, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Eastern Peru are visited. 
The Solitary Sandpiper is so named because it is generally found 
alone or in pairs on its journeys, when it is not infrequent by pools 
and rivulets ; but for a short time after the young are hatched small 
family parties are formed. During the summer the bitd appears to 
be partial to small ponds surrounded by dense forest, and it then 
resorts to decayed logs for the larvz of insects, but at other times it 
probes the soft mud for worms and minute crustaceans. The note 
is a sharp whistle. 
3B 2 
