SANDPIPER. 
65 
hypoleucus: it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of some 
ponds near the village ; and, as it had a companion, doubtless 
intended to have bred near that w^iQX. Besides, the owner has 
told me since, that, on recollection, he has seen some of the same 
birds round his ponds in former summers.* 
distinguishable ; they are semi-transparent white, more or less dotted with rufous spots, which 
usually form a zone around the large end, and are sometimes accompanied with spots of a much 
darker colour. Not unfrequently they are a miniature resemblance of those of the robin. A spe- 
cies almost exactly resembling this, but differing slightly in the make of the bill I have seen 
specimens of, from Japan. 
The chiffchaff-pettychaps (S. loquax) is the smallest of the three, and in appearance hardly 
differs from the last, but may be always readily told by the dark colour of its legs and feet ; its 
plumage, too, is every where half a shade darker, and the 
wings are much shorter ; it also stands rather more up- 
right upon the legs, with the head often sunk in the shoul- 
ders, and the wings commonly held somewhat drooping. It 
is everj' where a less plentiful species than the two others, 
and does not extend so far to the north, being described not 
to visit Scotland. Its haunts are similar to those of the 
iast, only it is rather more confined to woods, though not 
8o exclusively so as the sibilous pettychaps. I have gene- 
rally found it to arrive about the same time as the S. me- 
lodia, or perhaps a day or two earlier ; but, as a very few ChiffchafF Pettychaps. 
occasionally remain with us through the winter, its notes are sometimes heard long before. 
There have also been instances of the warbling-pettychaps staying the winter in the west of Eng- 
land. The song of the present species is very different from those of the others, and consists but 
of two notes (some idea of which may be gathered from the sound tsih, tsah) repeated several 
times continuously in monotonous succession, and occasionally, but very rarely, mingled with 
another sound which it would be useless to attempt to express on paper ; like both the other 
species, it occasionally sings as it flies from tree to tree. The nest is very like that of the 
warbling pettychaps, and is placed in similar situations — upon or near the ground, amid a tuft of 
herbage ; that of S. sibilans is sometimes fixed against the trunk of a tree. The eggs are of the 
same half-transparent white, but are marked with only a few scattered dark purplish-red spots, 
and are not much subject to variation. It emits the same cry when the nest is approached as the 
last species The chiffchaff-pettychaps is the sj/Juia ru/a of the continental naturalists, and the 
Sylvia hippolais of those of Britain — which confusion in its nomenclature pretty plainly evinces, on 
the one hand, the misleading tendency of faulty and inappropriate names (no British naturalist 
im&gining for a moment that our bird could have been designated rufa), and intimates, on the 
other, the insufficiency of the meagre descriptions of some authors, towards the enabling their 
readers to make out the species they intend ; for had the describers of the continental $• hippolais 
(now constituting a distinct sub-genus) merely mentioned the fact that it is a fine and splendid 
songster, our bird would never have been supposed to be identical with it, and the latter would 
not have been described by the continental writers as occurring in Britain. 
All the pettychaps-genus maj' be easily kept in confinement upon bread and milk, and crum- 
bled bread and bruised hempseed, allowing them also as much insect-food as possible. They 
soon become extremely tame and familiar, but in winter are very tender and impatient of 
cold.— En. 
• The common sandpiper {totanus hypoleucus), usually called summer snipe" iu the south of 
England, where, however, it is much less abundant than in the northern counties and in Scot 
land, though still not rare. It is a pretty active little bird, perpetually in motion ; ♦* for," as 
Selby says, " whether running along the shore, or perched on a stone, its tail is ever moving wp 
and down, and it has also the custom (in common with other species of this genus), of nodding 
the head, by suddenly stretching and contracting the neck." The same author correctly adds 
that '* its flight is graceful, though peculiar, being performed by a rapid motion of the pinions, 
succeeded by an interval of rest, the wings at the same time being considerably bent, and form- 
ing an angle with the body; in this manner it skims with rapidity over the surface of the water. 
Dot always flying in a straight line, but making occasional sweeps, uttering at the same tim« Ut 
F 
