63 



Thompson states that it is a regular autumnal visitant to the north of Ireland, but is of very 

 rare occurrence in the winter, and adds (B. of Irel. ii. p. 287) : — " Notes connected with it in 

 Belfast Bay for above twenty-five years are before me. From these it appears, as with the 

 Grallatores generally, that September is its favourite month in that locality. The earliest 

 arrival noted is the 25th of August ; before the end of September its departure is occasionally 

 taken ; and it rarely remains until the end of October. 



" On the shores only of Antrim, Down, Louth, Dublin, Cork, and Galway I have positively 

 known this bird to occur ; but there can be no doubt that it annually visits all suitable places 

 along the range of at least our eastern and southern coast. It is interesting to perceive that at 

 the next place noticed, southward of Belfast Bay, it was obtained after the species leaves that 

 locality, in November, and again at the more southern, Dublin Bay, that it was shot in the 

 following month, December, when it is not with us. The bird would thus seem to be in no 

 haste on its migration southwards." 



In occurs in Scandinavia on passage. Mr. Collett says ^that, though it has been shot in the 

 summer in Finmark, it has not been found breeding in Scandinavia. It is often seen on the 

 coasts of Norway on the autumnal passage, but scarcely ever in spring. It has frequently been 

 shot at Stavanger, at Farsund, and near Christiania ; but young birds are those generally met 

 with. Nilsson says that it occurs on the coasts of Sweden on passage, more seldom in the spring, 

 but oftener in the autumn. It passes Gothenburg in March and April, and returns again in July 

 and August, remaining until October. In Finland it is uncommon. Dr. Palmen says that the 

 late Mr. Ekebom received two specimens from near Helsingfors. Sahlberg once observed it on 



o 



Pyhajarvi lake, in Ylane, south-western Finland ; and Bergstrand records it from Aland. It has 

 never been observed in Finland in spring, but only on the autumn passage. It certainly appears 

 to breed in the north of Russia; and though its nest has not been found there, yet there is suffi- 

 cient evidence to show that its breeding-haunts must be somewhere in that portion of the globe. 

 Messrs. Alston and Harvie-Brown state that they purchased one in the market at Archangel on 

 the 18th June, but did not meet with it on the islands; and in their article on the ornithology 

 of the Lower Petchora, Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie-Brown write (Ibis, 1876, p. 293) as follows : — 

 " During a short half hour that we visited Dvoinik, on the occasion of our first visit, Seebohm 

 succeeded in securing a single example in full breeding-plumage, which was all we saw of the 

 Curlew Sandpiper, unless six or seven other birds, which were feeding along with it at the time 

 it was shot, were of the same species. We obtained no definite clue to its breeding-haunts ; but 

 from the accounts we heard, conflicting and untrustworthy as these often were, we gathered that 

 marshy plains and swamps of great extent lie along the courses of the numerous rivers and small 

 streams which flow from the Pytkoff Mountains to the sea, to the north-eastward of Dvoinik. Of 

 this fair land of promise we were only permitted to obtain a very distant and unsatisfactory view, 

 as, on the only occasion when we might have seen it, had the air been clear, from a height upon 

 the tundra to the north of the inlet, a white mist lay along the distant hollows, completely con- 

 cealing the features of the landscape. The Curlew Sandpiper, as we learn from Mr. Bogdanoff, 

 is seen on the Volga and Kama rivers during both migrations." Mr. Sabanaeff informs me that 

 it occurs on the South-east Ural on passage ; and Teplouhoff met with it on the Obva on the 

 1st July. It is also found in the Baltic provinces and Poland, where, Mr. Taczanowski says, 



3g 



