254 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Allied forms. — Tringa maritima couesi, an inhabitant of the Aleutian 

 Islands, and T. maritima ptilocnemis, an inhabitant of the Prybilof Islands, in 

 Behring Sea, during summer, wandering in winter to the Kurile Islands and the 

 coast of Alaska. So utterly slight are the characters upon which these subspecies 

 of the Purple Sandpiper are based, that I feel small hesitation in ignoring them, 

 and consider it much the wiser to treat the three forms as one until more 

 reliable and substantial characters are discovered. The Purple Sandpiper is 

 probably most closely allied to the Dunlin, a British species dealt with elsewhere. 



Habits. — A few Purple Sandpipers make their appearance on our coasts 

 early in September, but the great majority of birds arrive towards the end of that 

 month and during October. Many are taken in the flight nets of the Wash, or 

 used to be twenty years ago, in the first week of November. They remain with 

 us for the most part, comparatively few prolonging their flight to the south, until 

 the following May, when the return migration north is undertaken. Although 

 this species is decidedly partial to a rocky coast, a shore where huge boulders 

 shelve down into the water and are left bare at low tide, it is by no means un- 

 commonly observed on mud-flats and salt marshes. A favourite haunt of this 

 kind is in the Wash, and there I have repeatedly shot this bird from flocks of 

 Dunlins and Knots, and observed it very frequently running over the bare mud 

 round the margins of the big tide-pools at low water. At other times it frequents 

 the rock-bound coast, and seeks its food upon the wet weed-draped boulders as 

 the waves break over them and spread them with the food it loves. I have seen 

 it running over the rocks almost before the big waves have spent their force and 

 broken into seething drifts upon them ; and so venturesome is the little bird that 

 it runs along the very edge of the waves, where each one that breaks upon the 

 shore seems certain to sweep it away. It is by no means a shy bird, especially 

 when by itself, and always seems to prefer to run along just out of harm's way 

 rather than to take wing. It swims well and frequently, and occasionally alights 

 on the sea after it has been flushed. The food of the Purple Sandpiper consists 

 of crustaceans, mollusks, sand-worms, insects, and the seeds of various marine 

 plants. Most of this food is obtained as the tide is dashing over the rocks in its 

 ebb or flow, and during the period of high water the bird not unfrequently retires 

 inland a little way, or to a rocky islet or point to await the turn. The flight of 

 this bird is rapid and straightforward, but except during migration it is seldom 

 taken very high, and even then I am inclined to think that the bird, as a rule, 

 journeys close to the water. The note of this Sandpiper is a shrill and quickly 

 uttered tee-ivit. 



Nidification — In its more southerly breeding stations, as for instance at 

 the Faroes, where the influence of the Gulf Stream causes a comparatively early 

 spring, the Purple Sandpiper commences to breed in the second week of May ; 



