Family CHARADRIID^. Genus Totanus. 



Subfamily Totanin/e. 



WOOD SANDPIPER. 



TOTANUS GLAREOLA— ((?;««/2«). 



Geographical Distribution.— ^«VM .• Irregular straggler 

 on spring and autumn passage, most frequent in the east and 

 south; occasionally met with inland. Has only once been obtained 

 in Ireland (Co. Wicklow, August, 1885). Has with certainty been 

 known to breed in the now drained Prestwick Car in Northumber- 

 land, and doubtless continues to do so occasionally in Norfolk 

 and other suitable districts without attracting notice. Its eggs are 

 said to have been obtained in the neighbourhood of Elgin, but 

 throughout Scotland it is of much rarer occurrence than in 

 England, only one example being recorded from the west — on the 

 Clyde. Foreign : Palrearctic region ; Ethiopian and Oriental 

 regions in winter. Breeds throughout Europe in suitable localities 

 from the valley of the Danube northwards, but is only a straggler 

 to the Faroes. Eastwards it breeds in Siberia, probably as far 

 north as land extends, and southwards in Turkestan, ^Mongolia, 

 the north of China, and Kamtschatka. The European birds are 

 well known on passage south of the Danube, and winter in the 

 basin of the Mediterranean, and throughout Africa down to the 

 Cape Colony. The Asiatic birds winter in Persia, Beloochistan, 

 India, Ceylon, the Burma peninsula, and the Malay Archipelago, 

 but are only known in Japan and South China on passage. 



Allied Forms. — Totanus flavipes, the American representa- 

 tive of the Wood Sandpiper, which as it has occurred in the 

 British Islands will be dealt with fully in the following chapter. 



Time during which the Wood Sandpiper may be taken, 



— August I St to March ist. 



