Limicolce 207 



though the flight is stronger and the notes more pro- 

 nounced. 



The Purple Sandpiper (T. maritima), which is 

 common on many parts of our coasts from September 

 to May, and has even been supposed to have bred on 

 the Fame Islands off Northumberland, prefers rocky 

 shores to sandy, especially where the rocks are covered 

 with sea-weed. There it is to be found in company 

 with Tiurnstones, Redshanks and Oyster-catchers, while 

 it comes further south in October. The colours above 

 are purpMsh, black, brown, and rufous; the lower parts 

 are white with greyish breast and much brown spotting. 

 In winter the bird is browner. Abroad it breeds freely 

 in the Faeroes and Iceland, as well as on the Scandinavian 

 coasts, • and roimd the whole of the Arctic regions, if we 

 include a race from western America and take note of the 

 fact that the Asiatic tundras (or Arctic moorlands) do not 

 suit its habits. All these smaller Sandpipers being more 

 or less similar in flight, food, and so forth, we need only 

 call attention in the case of the present species to its 

 great tameness in winter, its custom of searching spray- 

 washed rocks for food, and its reiterated double cry. 

 In the north it nests on the hiUs or at sea-level ; the 

 eggs, which are laid on a little grass or some dead leaves, 

 are green or olive with reddish and purplish markings. 



The Knot {T. canutus) is another of those species 

 of which the eggs have only in recent years been 

 certainly identified, though supposed specimens have 

 been more than once described. In 1901 Dr Walter, 

 in 1902 and 1903 Mr Birulia and other members of 

 the Russian North Polar Expedition brought well- 

 authenticated eggs to Europe from the Taimyr Penin- 

 sula and the New Siberian Islands in Arctic Asia 



