GREEN SANDPIPER 
S73 
they are mostly mottled brownish-grey, and this is 
the easiest point by which to distinguish it from 
the Green Sandpiper. The eggs are laid in May, 
sometimes in June ; they may be placed among 
the bare shingle of the stream or lake, with little or 
no nest, or else in a better sheltered situation amono- 
the deep, mixed vegetation of some bank or hill- 
side fairly near the water. In this case there is 
generally a rough but fairly plentiful nest of dry 
grass and stems. The four eggs are not quite so 
pointed as those of various other species of this 
family ; they are brownish-buff or warm biscuit- 
colour in ground, spotted fairly freely with medium 
and light brown. The Sandpiper is a fairy-like and 
delightful little bird, and when it comes to our 
southern streams on its passage in spring, as a 
straggler from the great armies of this tribe of 
shore-birds which nests in the remotest and 
loneliest regions, there is an air of something 
unusual and foreign about it, which makes its 
visits always interesting and striking. 
GREEN SANDPIPER. 
{Totanus ochropus.) 
The Green Sandpiper is not at all uncommon as 
a spring and autumn visitor to streams in many 
T 
