COMMON SANDPIPER. 
145 
Common Sandpiper. Pemi. Brit. Zool. 2. 204. Perm. Arct. 
Zool. 2. 388. Lath. Gen. Syn. 5. 178. Levo. Brit. Birds, 
5. pi. 172. Wale. Syn. 2.j)l. 148. Mont. Orn. Diet. 2. Bew. 
Brit. Birds, 2, 104. 
The plumage of this species does not appear to 
vary according to the season of the year, but to 
remain constant at all times : its length is about 
seven inches and a half : its beak is dusky, and irides 
brown : all the upper parts of the body are brown 
glossed with olivaceous, and marked with a blackish 
ray in the direction of the shafts : the feathers of the 
wings and of the back are transversely streaked with 
narrow zigzag dusky-black bands : over the eye is a 
whitish streak : the throat, breast, belly, and the 
rest of the under parts are pure white ; the sides of 
the neck and the breast being varied with longitu- 
dinal brown dashes : the four middle tail-feathers 
like the back, with five transverse dusky lines ; the 
outer one on each side white with brown bars, and 
the intermediate ones varied with white on their 
margins : the legs are greenish-ash. The young 
have the throat and the fore part of the neck pure 
white, with the sides of the latter spotted with brown : 
the white line over the eyes is very broad : the wing- 
coverts are of a deeper colour than in the old : the 
feathers of the back are edged with red and dusky, 
and those of the coverts are tipped with red and 
black. 
An elegant little species, visiting England in the 
spring, and frequenting our lakes and rivers, on the 
borders of which it makes its nest, composed of moss 
and dry leaves, and generally placed in a hole on a 
