138 



British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



used to find it plentiful on the Fame Islands in winter, and tlie rocky parts of 

 the adjacent coasts. It may occasionally be met with on sandy or muddy shores, 

 but in such places is only resting and feeding on its travels, and does not stop 

 long. It is very pretty to watch Purple Sandpipers, at high-water, nimbly 

 dodging the waves as they dash amongst the rocks on which they are feeding ; 

 being naturally fearless of man, they admit of a near approach. If flushed, 

 should the sea be calm, they not uncommonly alight in the water, and swnm 

 about with as much ease as Phalaropes do, till the intruder has passed. Their 

 food consists of small mollusca, Crustacea, and such insects as haunt maritime 

 rocks ; on the fells, in their breeding quarters, they feed on insects, chiefly small 

 beetles and flies, with seeds. They are, as has been already mentioned, essen- 

 tially frequenters of rock^' coasts with us, and very rarely seen inland. 



Family— S COL OPA CID^. 



Knot. 



Tringa canutus, LiXN. 



TRADITION derives the name of this bird from one of our early kings — who 

 is popularly supposed to have had a penchant for it as a table-bird, as well 

 as for the edge of the sea — the Latin form from his, Canutus, the vernacular from 

 the Scandinavian form Knot, or Knud. Like the Purple Sandpiper, it is chiefly 

 a bird of the Atlantic shores. Its breeding quarters were long a mystery, and 

 even now its eggs are all but unknown, but it has been ascertained to nest in 

 the extreme north, in Greenland, Grinnell Land, Melville Island, and the Melville 

 Peninsula; it very possibly breeds also on the Liakhov, or New Siberian 

 Islands. It has been reported to breed in Iceland, but this is unsupported by 

 proof, though the Knot visits Iceland on migration : supposing the bulk of the 

 vast numbers of Knots which frequent Western Europe to breed in the neighbour- 



