THE COMMON SANDPIPER. 
195 
THE COMMON SANDPIPEE. 
Totanus hypoleucos. 
It was not until the year 1869 that I was able to procure for 
identification so much as a single specimen of this bird, when, on 
the 2d of July, Eobert Mouat not only shot a pair at the Loch 
of Cliff, but had a chase after the young as they ran among the 
long grass. This is the only direct evidence of its breeding in 
Shetland ; though that it does so regularly is pretty certain, for 
during the summer months the bird is often heard and some- 
times seen. Messrs Baikie and Heddle consider it merely an 
occasional visitor to Orkney. Thomas Edmondston’s singular 
mistake of recording this species as a winter visitor to Shet- 
land was afterwards corrected by himself. 
Somewhat later in the above-named year, I myself shot one 
from a small party, perhaps a family. . It fell, winged, into the 
water, and remained swimming leisurely about while I pushed 
off the boat and rowed up ; but the bird dived the moment I 
attempted to seize it, and although I ke]3t a strict look-out all 
round upon the dead-calm surface of the water it never re- 
appeared. Another singular fact in connection with the habits 
of this bird is its, at any rate occasional, terror at thunder. I 
remember as a boy, in the autumn of 1850, trying for several 
days to get near some Common Sandpipers which had appeared 
upon the rocky shore near Dunnose, in the Isle of Wight, but 
so wild were they that not even a long shot could be obtained. 
One afternoon while I was endeavouring to stalk them, a heavy 
thunderstorm came on, and during one remarkably heavy peal 
I observed the birds fluttering to the shelter of the rocks ; 
running up, I found one in such a position that it might easily 
have escaped, but so great was its terror that it remained cower- 
ing up against an overhanging piece of rock, where I easily 
captured it beneath my hat. 
Obs . — Thomas Edmondston states that he had twice observed 
the Spotted Sandpiper in Shetland,” and here again in winter. 
