COMMON SANDPIPER. 139 
COMMON SANDPIPER. 
Toranus HYPoLEucus, Linn. 
Pl. XX., fig. 10. 
Geogr. distr.—Europe generally; Asia to the Malay Archipelago ; 
Africa to the Cape; Australia: in Great Britain it breeds regularly in 
Somerset, Devon, Wales, Yorkshire, Scotland, Shetland, and Ireland, 
and occasionally in Cornwall and Sussex. 
Food.—Insects, Mollusca, Crustacea, and sea-weed. 
‘ Nest.—A mere hole lined with dry grass and moss, or without any 
ining. 
Position of nest—Amongst herbage upon banks of rivers and 
streams, in gravel beds amongst pebbles, or in irregularities upon 
the surface of a bare rock. 
Number of eggs.—4. 
Time of nidification.—V. 
It is said that this bird often betrays the proximity of its 
nest by its anxiety, in which respect it is by no means 
peculiar. On the banks of the Findhorn, in Elgin, Scot- 
land, it is stated to nest amongst whins and alders. Accord- 
ing to Hewitson, it ‘‘ frequents almost every river, skimming 
over the surface, and uttering its sweet melancholy whistle. 
It lays its eggs either amongst the large dockens that grow 
upon the banks, or upon the beds of gravel by the margins 
of the stream. In the former situation, where there is 
apparently less need, it makes a slight nest by collecting a 
little dry grass, and placing it in a hole scratched for that 
purpose; in the latter none, contenting itself by placing its 
eggs in a slight depression amongst the gravel. Here it is, 
however, by no means easy to discover them, placed as they 
are amongst the small pebbles. I have found them upon 
the bare flat rock,- where nothing but a very slight in- 
equality in the surface kept them in their places.’—(III. 
Eggs Brit. Birds, vol. ii., p. 298). 
Mr. Howard Saunders says that it ‘‘ makes a slight nest 
of moss and dried leaves ina hole on a bank near fresh 
water, generally under shelter of a bunch of rushes or a 
tuft of grass, and sometimes in a corn-field, if it happens to 
extend near enough towards the water.’—(Yarrell's Hist. 
Brit. Birds, 4th ed., vol. iii., p. 449.) 
