THE PURPLE SANDPIPER 



The four eggs are laid in some hollow in the ground, which is lined with pieces 

 of moss or dry leaves, and vary in colour from a pale olive-green to buffish-stone 

 colour, with underlying shell markings of purplish-grey and blotches of reddish- 

 brown. 



The Purple Sandpiper is very tame and confiding, and when feeding among the 

 sea-weed is easily approached, and can be watched at very close quarters. They 

 show little fear of the waves as they break against the rocks, and are able to swim 

 easily, and on passing across the water from one group of rocks to a fresh feeding 

 ground fly swiftly, usually keeping together in a flock. When unemployed at high- 

 tide, they loiter on the drier places, quietly resting or preening their feathers. 



THE KNOT. 



Tringa canutus, Linnaeus. 

 Plate 66. 



The Knot is another of our birds of passage, occurring in numbers on many 

 parts of the British coasts and tidal estuaries in autumn and spring. This species 

 breeds in the remote Arctic solitudes of Parry's Islands, Melville Peninsula, Grinnel 

 Land, and Greenland, and ranges very far southwards in winter, occurring at that 

 season in South Africa, India, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, and South 

 America. 



Although in the summer of 1876 Col. Feilden and Mr. Chichester Hart obtained 

 nestlings of the Knot in latitudes 82 33' and 8i°44 / N., when Sir George Nares 

 made his voyage to the Polar seas, no authentic eggs appear to be known, but, 

 according to Dresser's Manual of Palmare tic Birds, there " is said to be a specimen 

 in the Smithsonian Museum at Washington." 



At one time the late Lord Lilford possessed a number of these birds, and by 

 keeping them in a warm aviary in winter and then transferring them to a colder 

 one in spring, hoped by this means to induce them to breed. At last an egg, which 

 I believe is now in the museum at Cambridge, was found in the enclosure, but 

 some doubt occurred regarding the origin of this egg owing to the discovery in the 

 aviary of a Wader of another species, which had unfortunately been overlooked 

 when the place was prepared. 



When on our shores the habits of the Knot are very much like those of its 

 congeners ; it frequents the sands and mudflats at low-tide, usually seeking its food 

 of sand-worms, small crustaceans, and other marine creatures by the sea-margin, 



37 



