AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 85 



rotten e^g, and two very minute Sandpipers crouching 

 close in the strong heather that surrounded and 

 effectually concealed the nest. The agony of anxiety 

 of the parents was quite painful to witness as they 

 screamed and twittered about us, occasionally almost 

 touching the dog, and often alighting within a few 

 feet of us, with feigned lameness, or injury to their 

 wings ; and even after I had put the young birds 

 into their nest, this pair followed and flew around us, 

 till we approached closely to another nest containing 

 four eggs on the point of hatching, from which my 

 dog disturbed the sitting bird. In this instance the 

 parent birds, although they hovered and flew rest- 

 lessly about at a short distance, did not pay us such 

 close attention as the first pair. The eggs, of which 

 the usual complement is four, are very pear-shaped 

 in form, of a yellowish creamy ground-colour, and 

 more or less spotted and blotched with dark brown. 

 I have never in Northamptonshire or, to the best of 

 my recollection, elsewhere met with the Common 

 Sandpiper at any of our very frequent muddy-edged 

 ponds, which are the favourite haunts of the Green 

 Sandpiper during its erratic visits to our locality, and 

 although I have sometimes met with the present 

 species in considerable numbers on the tidal muds of 

 coasts and estuaries at home and abroad, it has 

 seemed to me that it perfers rocky and broken 

 beaches to the open flats which afford such great 

 attractions to most of our waders. I have often 

 seen this species perch on stone Avails and wooden 

 rail fences, and once or twice on a dead bough 

 overhanging a stream. When suddenly flushed, the 

 Common Sandpiper shoots off with a darting flight 

 close to the surface of the water, with a shrill piping 



