214 
SCOLOPACID^. 
pond, and remain there for some days until they gather suffi- 
cient strength to move onward. Towards the middle of July, they 
appear at such localities (then only do they ever visit them), and 
are sometimes very noisy, — the piping of the young and old 
together producing quite a concert, though certainly more of a 
shrill than sonorous kind. A relative, walking on the banks of 
the Tlush, a mountain rivulet amid the Belfast mountains, on 
the 8th of July, met with eight sandpipers, chiefly young. One 
of the party, doubtless a parent bird, flew after, and circled 
several times around him and a setter- dog as they proceeded along 
the banks of the stream. It afterwards followed tlie dog througli 
several fields, often flying angrily at his head and body, though 
apparently without striking him. As the young birds could 
all fly well, my friend was surprised at the pertinacity with which 
the dog was pursued. About a fortnight afterwards these birds 
had all left the locality. 
Stones are the common resting-places of this species ; but it 
has frequently been observed to perch on ragweeds {Senecio 
Jacohcea) growing in fields bordering its haunts, as well as on 
shrubby and other plants contiguous to water. Its facility of 
swimming and diving, respecting which many notes have been 
supplied to me, is well known. A bird, wounded by a shooter in 
Belfast Bay, having dived, he saw it run for a yard or more along 
the bottom — where the water was about a foot and a half in depth 
— as quickly as it could have done on dry land. Its neck was 
stretched out, its breast close to the bottom, and its wings in full 
use during its progress. I have myself seen the young, when un- 
able to fly, take to the water for safety, and swim well. 
In the appendix to the ‘^Letters of Eusticus of Godaiming,'’ 
Mr. J. D. Salmon remarks, that he does ‘"‘^not think this bird 
breeds further south than Yorkshire (p. 155). When meeting 
with pairs at Ogwell Pool, North Wales (May 12), and on the 
banks of the Learn, in Warwickshire (July II), I imagined that 
they were probably breeding in those localities, as they would 
have been at similar })laces in Ireland ; in the south as well as the 
north of which country they commonly nidify. 
