AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 87 



As a rule (in our neighbourhood at least) these birds 

 do not frequent the river-sides, but during open 

 weather are to be met with at particular ponds in 

 our pastures, where the cattle have trodden their 

 drinking-places into more or less bare mud ; at such 

 spots a Green Sandpiper or two may frequently be 

 found fi.-om the middle of July till the first severe 

 frosts compel them to seek the margins of unfrozen 

 brooks, and eventually send them down to the sea- 

 shores. Few of our neighbours are ornithologists, 



C3-reen Sandpiper. 



and some of them, having seen a bird with a longish 

 bill rise alone from a soft place with a loud and 

 striking whistle, have at various times obligingly, 

 and in all good faith, assured me that they had seen 

 a Solitary Snipe ; on these occasions I have almost 

 invariably satisfied my mind, and saved myself a 

 fruitless quest, by obtaining an affirmative answer to 

 the question " Had the bird a white patch on its 

 its back 1 " as the \^ hite of the upper tail-coverts and 



