SEA-BIRDS AN'D WADERS 
been brought into tlie port by passengers on ships. Any case 
of this bird taken at sea shonld be noted and the exact position 
of the ship at the time carefully recorded for this petrel is still 
considered as rare and the limits of its range are not known. 
Frigate birds are met with out to sea at no great distance 
from land; a cormorant was once obtained at Johore Bahru and 
the pehcan has been known to call in at the reservoir in 
Singapore. 
Although not absent like tlie gulls, all members of the 
Anserifonncs, the Order incUiding ducks, geese and swans, 
are extremely scarce in Singapore and are indeed not common 
in the Malay Peninsula. The tiny cotton teal, Netiopin 
coromandelianus, (itek ayer: belabas) recopfnised by its small 
goose-like bill, white plumage below and shiny dark green above 
shares with the whistling teal, Dcndrocygtta javanka (belibis), 
a larger bird chieBy brown in plumage, the distinction of being 
the only ducks recorded from the island. They are rare and not 
likely to be met m the ordinary course of events. 
We must next turn our attention to the wading birds for 
in the autumn and winter they are a conspicuous feature of our 
coasts, At the same time it will be impossible even to mention 
here all the species that are known to visit the island. 
Sand-plovers of several kinds iCfiaradrtHS} are abundant 
and one species, which ma>' be regarded as a resident tropical 
race of the well-known Kentish plover, breeds on the sandy 
beaches hereabouts. 
In passing it should be mentioned that there is little 
opportunity for shore shooting in Singapore owing to the lack 
of any extensive mud-flats. The presence of the birds is also 
usually very uncertain. 
The common sandpiper Tringokics hypoici4cus (kedidi), 
also found in ICurope, seems to be with us most of the year. 
He runs about on tlie banks of the Impounding Reservoir and 
even hunts for food along the edge of the tiny ponds near 
Chinese houses in the country. 
The wood sandpiper (RhyacophUus ghreola) is often seen 
in the same kind of country as the snipe frequent and with the 
possible exception of the golden plover, which appears in large 
[77) 
