290 THE GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL 



the ground after the manner of a Dunhn or a Stint. In many 

 locahties I have repeatedly observed that during high water the 

 Sanderling skulks on the higher shingle, returning to the actual 

 beach as soon as the sands begin to be exposed. Here it follows 

 the receding tide, running about the edge of the waves as they 

 break on shore, and occasionally wading through the shallow 

 water. The white breast of the Sanderling makes it a very con- 

 spicuous bird on the dark sands, and the effect produced of a 

 scattered flock all standing head towards the observer is very 

 pretty. It is a remarkably tame little creature upon its first arrival, 

 but becomes more wary later. The food of this species consists 

 of crustaceans, sand-worms, and various insects, as well as of 

 great quantities of minute shells. In summer the Sanderling is 

 much more insectivorous, and also feeds on the buds of the 

 Arctic saxifrages. The note of this Wader is a sharp, shrill whit ; 

 whether it utters a trill or any other cry at the breeding grounds 

 observers who have had ample opportunities of noticing omit to 

 inform us. 



Nidification. — Only meagre details concerning the breeding 

 habits of the Sanderling are on record. MacFarlane appears 

 to have been the first naturalist to take the nest of this bird, 

 killing a female from her eggs on the tundras near the Arctic 

 Ocean in North-west America, on the 29th of June, 1863. This 

 nest was merely a hollow scantily lined with dry grass and leaves. 

 Thirteen years afterwards, almost to the very day (24th June), 

 Captain Feilden found a nest of the Sanderling, close to Cape 

 Union in Grinnell Land, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean at the 

 very northern limit of known animal life. This nest was made 

 on a ridge of gravel several hundred feet above sea-level, and was 

 merely a slight hollow in the centre of a bent-down willow plant, 

 Uned with a few dead leaves and withered catkins. By the 8th 

 of August he observed the young able to fly, yet still in company 

 with their parents. The eggs of the SanderUng are four in 

 number, huffish olive in ground colour, densely mottled and 

 spotted with pale olive-brown, and with underlying markings of 

 ink-gray. They measure on an average i"4 inch in length by I'o 

 inch in breadth. Both parents assist in the task of incubation, and 

 only one brood is reared in the season. It is rather an unusual 



