A.CTITIS II V POLEUCOS fw; 



COMMoX SAM)riri:ii. Cunts: A< i .i is. 



^THHERB is no more widely distributed l>inl in Australasia than the Common Sandpiper. On every coast 

 I and in every clinic it is to be found pursuing its innocent life on muddy mangrove banks or the 

 rocky shores oi ocean harbours. It is vivacious in its movements, flitting from mangrove root to root, or 

 rock to rock, in search of worms insects, and molluscs, its tail being in constant wagging motion the 

 w hile. 



1 1 > hahits, manners, and economy are precisely the same as the British variety, and we may 

 therefore conclude that its nest is made on the same plan— that is, a slight structure in a tuft of rushes 

 near a stream, in which it deposits four pointed eggs — large for the size of the bird, and measuring I inch 

 5^ lines by 12^ lines, a close approximation to the Terek Sandpiper's eggs, which it also resembles in 

 appearance, having a ground colour of a warm stony-grey or cream, sparingly marked, but close about the 

 apex, with roundish spots and blotches of umber, reddish-brown, and obscure grey, the last colour appearing 

 under the surface of the shell. 



The sexes are alike in plumage, and show little perceptible difference in size, but the young ones 

 have the brown feathers of the upper surface barred and freckled with darker brown. As these young 

 ones are always more frequently met with than the adult birds, we are led to conjecture either that the 

 race is delicate and dies prematurely, or else the shyness of their disposition increases with age, inducing 

 them to withdraw more and more from civilisation. Always it is a rare thing to meet more than four in 

 company, while it is most usual to find solitary individuals. 



The adults have all the upper surface pale glossy or bronzy brown, each feather crossed with 

 irregular bars of dark brown, bounded on either side by a narrow line of pale brown; base and tips of the 

 secondaries, white : primaries, very slightly tipped with white ; centre tail-feathers, pale glossy or bronzy - 

 brown, with a row of irregular-shaped spots of dark brown along the margins; lateral feathers, white, crossed 

 by irregular blended bars of dark and pale brown : under surface, white, with the exception of the sides 

 of the chest and the shafts of the feathers of the front of the chest, which are pale brown. 



Total length, inches. (Gould). 



Habitats: Derby (X.W.A.), Port Darwin, Port Essington, Cape York, Rockingham Hay. Port 

 Dcnison, Wide Hay District. Richmond and Clarence River Districts, New South Wales, Victoria and 

 South Australia, Tasmania, West and South-West Australia, south coast of New Guinea. [Ramsay.) 



GENUS STREPSILAS (Illiger). 



THERE is no more widely distributed bird known than the Turnstone. It is found in almost every 

 country in the world, thus making up for the sparseness of its species, which number at the 

 outside three. 



