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they find, cast up by the sea, more than sufficient for their wants, though they still prefer to 

 obtain food at the very edges of the waves. When, however, the gale is so furious that remaining 

 exposed to it is utterly impossible, they retreat to the shelter of the rocks ; but they sometimes 

 come inland, where they seem pretty well contented under the lee of the walls. I have seen 

 them at such times feeding within a few yards of the front of the house. 



" As spring approaches, small parties are often met with upon the tops of the hills, several 

 hundred feet above the level of the sea. Returning homewards rather late one evening, across 

 a small piece of wet gravelly ground upon a hill near Balta Sound, I heard a low grating sound, 

 and after some little search discovered it proceeded from a Purple Sandpiper which was standing 

 near with its bill partly open, and apparently making great efforts to swallow something. I then 

 shot the bird, and found in its mouth a small roundish stone, partly covered with a minute 

 vegetable substance, which also grew in great abundance upon every stone beneath the slowly 

 trickling water. A large quantity of the same substance was present in the stomach and 

 oesophagus ; and more of it was thickly entangled in the double row of papillae upon the palate. 

 I afterwards shot two more of the same species similarly engaged. This certainly looks very 

 much as if the papillae, assisted by those at the base of the tongue, acted together as a kind of 

 double rasp. 



" The familiarity of these birds often enables one to approach within a few feet ; sometimes 

 in the dusk of the evening I have succeeded in creeping up so close that I might almost have 

 touched them with the muzzle of the gun. At such times I have heard another very peculiar 

 sound, nearly resembling the loud ticking of a watch. At first it seemed likely that it proceeded 

 from the bursting of a succession of air-bubbles as they ascended from the hidden inhabitant of 

 one of the pools of water near at hand ; but afterwards hearing it when the bird was standing 

 upon a piece of dry ground, some distance inland, my opinion was altered. 



"The Purple Sandpiper is an excellent swimmer. In calm weather I have seen three or 

 four, belonging to a large party, swimming actively about the base of a rock upon which their 

 companions were feeding. I never saw one dive except when wounded and closely pursued. 

 Sometimes when I have disturbed one on a calm day, it has taken wing and has deliberately 

 alighted upon the water several yards from the shore." 



The breeding-season varies somewhat according to locality, the eggs being deposited from 

 the middle of May to the early part of June. The places selected for nidification are elevated 

 stony places, usually, however, not far from the sea ; and the nest, which is merely a depression 

 in the soil or moss, is amongst the short grass with which these places are covered. The eggs, 

 four in number, vary as much as do those of the Dunlin, with which in general coloration they 

 bear much affinity. I possess a considerable series from Greenland and the Faeroes, which vary 

 in ground-colour from bright sea-green to greenish grey and stone-buff, and are marked with pale 

 purplish or purplish grey underlying shell-markings and dark reddish brown surface-spots and 

 blotches, most of them being more profusely blotched at the larger end. In size they vary from 

 lio by 1 inch to lf£ by 1^ inch. Mr. Benzon informs me that he possesses one egg which is 

 uniform light green in colour without any spots. Dr. Elliott Coues, referring to eggs of this 

 bird, writes to me as follows, viz. : — "Various eggs of this species show the usual pyriform shape, 

 and measure about T40 by 1-00. The ground is clay-colour, more or less shaded with oliva- 



