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garb, all obtained in Great Britain ; but, as a rule, summer-plumaged specimens are rare with 

 us. The Sanderling frequents the coast only, never being met with inland, unless driven there 

 by stress of weather. It affects the large sandy tracts which are alternately covered by the 

 water and left bare again as the tide rises and falls, or else muddy estuaries or mud-flats left 

 bare by the receding water ; and it not unfrequently consorts with other species of marine Waders, 

 such as Dunlins, Ringed Plovers, &c. As a rule, the present species is rather tame and confiding 

 than shy, and may be approached without much difficulty, especially when feeding. Its food 

 consists of small worms, insects, &c. ; and Mr. Stevenson states that the stomachs of several he 

 examined were filled with " the remains of small shrimps and sandhoppers, small white worms, 

 little fragments of seaweed, and minute beetles, mixed with a considerable amount of coarse 

 sand." When feeding they scatter over the sands or mud-flats, probing the soft sand or mud 

 with their bills, now and then raising their wings over their backs as if stretching them, but 

 without attempting to take wing, sometimes running rapidly, following the receding wave, and 

 quickly evading it as it returns. If winged and happening to fall into the water, the Sanderling 

 will swim buoyantly and with ease ; but I have not known it to dive when pursued. When a 

 flock is alarmed they take wing in a body and fly out to sea, uttering a shrill but not unpleasant 

 cry, and, circling and wheeling like a flock of Dunlins, they will alight again near the edge of 

 the water at some distance from where they took wing. 



Until lately nothing was positively known as to the nidification of this species, though it 

 was said to breed in considerable numbers on the Parry Islands ; for the meagre account of 

 Hutchins, first published by Richardson (Faun. B.-Am. ii. p. 366), was, and still appears, very 

 questionable. It was supposed to have been found breeding more than once in Iceland or the 

 adjacent islet of Grimsey ; but the eggs sent thence were obviously those of the Eing-Plover 

 (JEgialitis hiaticula) — a bird, from its local name (Sanclloa), often confounded there with the 

 Sanderling. In 1858 Mr. Wolley and Professor Newton bought at Reykjavik a small collection 

 of eggs which had certainly been formed in that island. Among them was one which the latter 

 gentleman has told me he at the time felt pretty confident would prove to be a Sanderling's. 

 Some ten years later Mr. Macfarlane, one of the collectors of the Smithsonian Institution, found 

 this species breeding on the barren grounds of Anderson river, in Western North America, and 

 obtained a nest with four eggs, from which the hen bird was shot. One of these, having been 

 transmitted by Professor Baird to Professor Newton, was by him exhibited to the Zoological 

 Society, and figured (P. Z. S. 1871, p. 56, pi. iv. fig. 2). The specimen appeared to be so different 

 from that which he had formerly got in Iceland, that he for the time gave up his belief in the 

 latter belonging to this species ; but on the return of the German North-Pole expedition the eggs 

 collected by Dr. Pansch, who was attached to it as naturalist, were placed in Professor Newton's 

 hands by Dr. Finsch for description. Among them was a series of ten specimens, taken on 

 Sabine Island, off the east coast of Greenland, when no other species of Wader to which they 

 could possibly have belonged, except Calidris arenaria (which was plentiful), was observed. This 

 series, as Professor Newton afterwards stated (P. Z. S. 1871, p. 546, and Zweite deutsche Nord- 

 polarfahrt, ii. p. 240), exhibited all the necessary links of transition between his supposed 

 specimen from Iceland and the authenticated specimen from Anderson river, which respectively 

 show the limits of variation in the eggs of this species so far as we are yet acquainted with them. 



