284 
PR2EC0CIAL GRALLATORES — UMICORE. 
alive. It was not at all shy, and fed readily on small worms, first dipping them in 
a pan of water. It wonld run about the room rapidly, constantly moving its tail up 
and down like a Wheatear. When flushed it utters a shrill whistle, and generally 
flies low, skimming over the surface of the water, and following with precision all 
the bends and angles of the stream. 
The Green Sandpiper is said to visit Scandinavia in the spring, and to remain 
there until August. It is not included among the birds of the Faroe Islands or of 
Iceland. In the spring and autumn it is very generally distributed over Europe. In 
France it is esteemed a great delicacy, and is caught by means of limed twigs. It is 
found in all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, was taken by Mr. Strick- 
land in Smyrna, and, as Vieillot states, has been seen in Egypt. It is said to be a 
characteristic summer resident near sheets of water in the wooded districts of North- 
eastern Germany, but it is never found in open marshes in the breeding-season. It 
has been known also to breed among the Lower Alps of Southeastern France and 
throughout the French Pyrenees. It has been found in numbers in winter among 
the mountains of Abyssinia, and has also been met with even as far south as the 
Cape Colony. In Asia it appears to be common in Persia, India, Turkestan, Bur- 
mah, China, and Japan, and to breed in all the northern portions of that conti- 
nent. It is said to be very shy and difficult of approach. Its flight is graceful and 
swift, and it traverses a considerable distance with but few strokes of its wings. It 
hovers a little just before it alights, and then its wings are more extended than in 
its flight. It is very peculiar in its mode of nesting, depositing its eggs in old 
nests situated in trees, and is not known ever to nest on the ground. The details 
of its breeding-habits were first published in “Cabanis’s Journal” (1862, p. 460) by 
Mr. Hintz, who found its nest for the first time April 26, 1834, in an old one of a 
Turdus musicus. He afterward saw their eggs in old nests of Pigeons, Jays, Shrikes, 
and other birds, but most commonly in those of the Thrush. Writing in 1862, Mr. 
Hintz states that none of the nests he had found up to that date were more than 
three paces from water, some being as low as a foot above the ground, although 
usually at an elevation of from three to six feet, and in some instances as much as 
thirty-five. It not infrequently uses the same nest two years in succession. The 
young, as soon as they are hatched, jump to the ground. It breeds as early as April. 
In one instance seven eggs of this bird were found in an old nest of a Thrush, most 
probably laid by two females of this species. 
The eggs of the Green Sandpiper are pear-shaped. In some the ground is of a 
delicate grayish sea-green, over which are sparingly distributed pale purplish-gray 
shell-markings and dark-brown blotches, the latter being chiefly collected round the 
larger end. In other examples the spots are smaller, more numerous, and more gen- 
erally distributed. Six eggs in my cabinet from Eastern Prussia exhibit, the follow- 
ing measurements: 1.50x1.12; 1.49x1.10; 1.51x1.11; 1.52x1.10; 1.53x1.10; 
1.51 x 1.08 : average, 1.51 x 1.10. 
Genus SYMPHEMIA, Rafinesque. 
Symphemia, Rafinesque, Jour, de Rhys. 1819.. (type, Scolopax semipalmata, Gmel.). 
Catoptrophorus, Bonap. Syn. 1828, 323 (same type). 
Char. Bill compressed, very thick, the culmen rounded. The lower mandible scarcely grooved 
the upper grooved to about the middle. Culmen slightly convex ; gonys ascending. Bill cleft but 
little beyond base of culmen. Feathers of sides of both mandibles falling short of the nostrils, the 
