The Common Sandpiper. 'Si 



prefer brackish and fresh ponds, and the ditches that drain the lands, to the sea 

 shore itself; and the individuals seen at such times and places are nearly all 

 young birds, with unstriped throats. 



As well as being a bird of rapid and sustained flight, the Common Sandpiper 

 can run very rapidly, and swim and dive well. I have seen it alight on still water 

 of its own accord, and one which I winged (and which arose silently from rushes 

 beside a brackish pond, in such a manner that I was doubtful what bird it was) 

 dived repeatedly before my retriever got it. A good many field naturalists mention 

 this bird as perching on trees; there is a rocky pool oflf the North Tyne, where 

 I used often to fish some years ago, over which projects, or projected then, an 

 almost horizontal trunk of a tree, a foot thick and ten above the water. I hardly 

 ever went there without seeing a bird of some kind perched on it, as it was such 

 a commanding look-out ; Kingfishers, Grey Wagtails, Sparrow-hawks, Dippers, 

 used it, and a Sandpiper hardly ever went up or down stream without perching 

 there for a few seconds at least, if only to stand and flirt its tail up and down, 

 and curtsey like a Dipper. The food inland consists of flies, fresh-water shrimps, 

 and larvae — they seem very fond of ephemerous larvae — by the sea, on migration, 

 they eat amphipods and other small Crustacea, and generally have fine gravel 

 mixed with the food in their gizzards. 



Their note is a tremulous whistle — I have heard no other — generally uttered 

 on the wing, which always recalls to my mind happy days by northern streams 

 and lakes, of freedom and perfect liberty, greater than seems easily obtainable in 

 this country nowadays — at least, by a poor man. 



