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SCOLOPAClDiE. 
THE SANDPIPER. 
Eresli- water Sandlark. 
Tot anus hypoleucos, Linn, (sp.) 
Tfinga „ 
Is a regular summer visitant to the lakes, rivers, and 
brooks throughout the island. 
It is one of the late-coming summer birds, making its appearance 
in the north about the end of April or beginning of May. The 
earliest note of its arrival before me is that of one which I shot 
in Colin Glen, near Belfast, on the 2 1st April, 1836. On arrival, 
they set about the great business of the season — to increase and 
multiply ; — and depart from the country soon after their brood 
(for with one they are satisfied) can accompany them. On the 
1 5th June I once found a nest and four eggs, under the shade of 
a dwarfed willow, growing from a bank of gravel, at Ram'^s 
Island, Lough Neagh; and on the 28th of the same month met 
with another on an islet (visited by means of a cormgJi) in Port- 
lough — a small lake near the extreme north-west of Ireland; it 
was well concealed from view amid the surrounding herbage, and 
contained two young birds. An unusual site was selected, some 
years ago, by a pair of sandpipers, which built their nest in a 
gooseberry-bush, in a garden (Mr. Grimshaw^s) contiguous to a 
pond in the neighbourhood of Belfast. It contained four eggs 
when the circumstance was mentioned to me. This bird nidifies 
at the sides of streams far up in the mountains near Clonmel,* 
and in similar localities in the southern counties of Waterford and 
Cork. 
The chief haunt of this species in summer is about fresh water ; 
but it has occasionally come under my notice at this season as 
well as in autumn, along the sea -coast. On the 1 2th July, 1833, 
it appeared on the Skerries, rocky marine islets off the northern 
* Mr. R. Davis. 
