OP THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 229 



Habits. — The Wood Sandpiper has comparatively small right to its trivial 

 name, the true " Wood " Sandpiper being the Green Sandpiper, the present species 

 frequenting moorlands and tundras where thickets of willovs^s fringe the pools 

 and swamps. The Wood Sandpiper is a rather late bird of passage, passing 

 Gibraltar from about the middle of March to the beginning of May, and arriving 

 in Germany from the beginning of April to the early part of June (which is about 

 the date of its appearance on the British coasts), birds coming at the latter date 

 being on their way to the Arctic regions. This species was first observed in the 

 valley of the Petchora near the Arctic circle by Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie- 

 Brown on the 26th of May ; but in the same latitude in the valley of the 

 Yenisei, it did not arrive until the 6th of June. As with most late migrants in 

 spring the return journey commences early in autumn, beginning with August 

 and lasting through September into October. The Wood Sandpiper whilst on 

 passage is said to be very tame, and was observed by Messrs. Seebohm and 

 Harvie-Brown actually near the pools of snow water in the streets of Ust Zylma. 

 A week later the birds were again met with thirty miles to the north at Habariki, 

 where they were feeding by the edges of the marshes and forest streams, and 

 occasionally perching on the topmost branches of the larch-trees. The Wood 

 Sandpiper at its winter quarters is said not to frequent the coast, but confines 

 itself to the marshes and inland streams and pools. It is not gregarious, is 

 usually met with in pairs or alone, and is seldom seen even in parties. In Ceylon 

 it frequents the rice fields, even whilst they are being tilled, running about in 

 quest of food with little show of fear for man. Its food consists principally of 

 insects and their larvas, small worms, and snails. The alarm note of the Wood 

 Sandpiper is a softly-uttered tyu-tyil. During the mating season the male utters 

 a somewhat musical but monotonous trill as he descends on elevated wings after 

 soaring, which begins in a soft and slow strain, but becomes quicker and louder as 

 he reaches a perching place on a tree or a fence, or on the ground, and when his 

 quivering pinions almost touch above his head. This trilling note sounds some- 

 thing like til-il-il. 



Nidification. — Towards the southern limits of its breeding area the Wood 

 Sandpiper begins to nest early in May, and fresh eggs may be obtained from about 

 the middle to the end of that month. Further north the eggs are laid much later. 

 The nest is generally made on a patch of dry ground close to the swamps, amongst 

 heath, sedge, and coarse rank grass, and often in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of a small willow thicket, in which the parent birds from time to time alight. It 

 is only a hollow in the ground, carelessly lined with a few scraps of withered 

 herbage. In the valley of the Yenisei, Mr. H. L. Popham found the Wood 

 Sandpiper breeding in the deserted nests of other birds, and actually shot a 

 sitting bird from its eggs in the old nest of a Fieldfare. He also remarked that 

 all the birds shot from their nests were males. The eggs are four in number. 



