'54 British "Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



trill. The ordinary note when flushed is a double or treble whistle, but they often 

 rise quite silently, which the next species seldom does. 



This bird has rather a musky scent — somewhat like the Shearwaters — and I 

 should doubt if it is fit to eat, but I have never been driven to experiment in 

 this direction. The food consists of insects, worms, larvae, and small mollusca, 

 and there is usually gravel in the gizzard as well. 



Family— SCOL OP A CID^. 



Green Sandpiper. 



Totanus ochropus, LiNN. 



THE Green Sandpiper gets its name from the greenish-grey legs, and the 

 bronzy- green gloss of its back. It nests in wet woods near convenient 

 marshes, in Northern Europe and Asia, up to, but seldom above, the Arctic 

 Circle, and down to Germany, Poland, Soutli Russia, and Turkestan. It has been 

 recorded as breeding in England, the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, and Caucasus, 

 but, though not unlikely, definite proof seems still wanting. The same may be 

 said of Japan, whence I have a skin in summer dress, and China;* with us, in 

 Central and Southern Europe, the whole of Africa, India, Ceylon, Burmah, and 

 the Malay Archipelago, it is an autumn and spring migrant, remaining in the 

 southernmost of these through the winter. W^ith us, too, like the W^ood Sandpiper, 

 it is more abundant on the east side than the west, but, unlike it, sometimes 

 stays through the winter. In America it has not been known to occur, but is 

 replaced by the next species, which wants the conspicuous white rump of our bird. 

 Description of adult in summer : bill dusky, with a light brown base ; iris 

 nmber ; upper parts hair-brown, with an olive sheen on the back and -nings ; 



• In the latter country Styan describes it as "common all the winter,'' the last species being only a spring 

 and autumn migrant. 



