LIMICOLA PYGM^A. 
Broad-billed Sandpiper. 
Nimenius pygmceus, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 713. 
pusillus, Bechst. Naturg. Deutschl., tom. \v. p. 152. 
Tringa platyrhyncha, Temm. Man. d’Orn., 2nd edit., tom. ii. p. 616, 
eloriodes, Vieill. Nouv. Diet. d’Hist. Nat., tom. xxxiv. p. 465. 
pygnusa, Savi, Orn. Tosc., tom. ii. p. 291. 
Limicola pygmeea, Koch, Baier. ZooL, tom. i. p. 315. 
Pelidna platyrhyncha, Cuv., Bonap. Geog. and Comp. List of Birds of Eur. and. N. Amer., p. 50. 
The bird now under consideration is not a regular migrant, and hence it must be classed among our 
accidental visitors. On the Continent it is more common, dwelling in its southern portions during winter, 
and retiring in summer to Norway, Sweden, and Lapland, to breed and rear its young. Of all the Sandpipers 
it is probably the one which approaches most nearly to the Scolopacidce ; and although quite distinct in 
structure from the little Jack Snipe, it strongly reminds us of that bird, in its small size and general 
contour, and also in some of its habits. M. Godefroy Lunel, Conservator of the Museum of the 
Academy of Geneva, has published, in the first volume of the ‘ Bulletin de la Societe Ornithologique 
Suisse,’ a very carefully wi-itten account of its peculiarities, which is too lengthy for entire transcription, 
hut from which I shall venture to give a translation of the less technical portion. 
“ The broad-billed Sandpiper appears in the environs of Montpellier every year during the earlier part 
of August, when a few isolated individuals are captured in the nets laid by the bird-catchers in the neigh- 
bourhood of the marshes. By their means I have had opportunities of examining numerous specimens, 
both dead and living, and of making myself acquainted w’ith the remarkable structure of the beak, whence 
it obtained one of its specific names. It is soft and flexible throughout its entire length, depressed 
and slightly bent towards the point, with a lateral furrow extending nearly to the tip of each mandible. 
The two branches of the inferior maxillary are completely ossified in their anterior third, and are 
contiguous for the remainder of their length, but not united. The skin of the chin, which embraces the 
base of tbe beak and the triangle formed by the bifurcation of the base of the lower mandible, is square 
at the top of the throat, devoid of feathers, and forms a small pouch, which may be contracted by 
the bird at pleasure ; it is of a reddish ash-colour during life, but becomes yellowish and wrinkled after 
death. It is small in young birds, but appears to increase in size as they advance in age.” 
I find only three instances recorded of the bird’s appearance in our Islands, namely, two in England, and 
one in Ireland. The first of the English specimens was killed on the muddy flats of Breydon Broad, 
in Norfolk, on the 25th of May, 1836; the second, near Shoreham, in Sussex, in October, 1845. The 
Irish example was killed on the oozy banks of Belfast Bay, on the 4th of October, 1844, with eleven 
Golden Plovers and seven or eight Dunlins, at one shot from a swivel-gun. 
The late Mr. Wheelwright says : — “ Till within the last few years the Broad-hilled Sandpiper appears 
to have been entirely overlooked in Sweden ; but I do not tbink it is so very rare there. Twelve years 
ago I shot three specimens in August, in the very south of the country ; since then I have shot the 
bird in Wermland; and now I have taken the nest in Lulea, Lapland. Of all the Sandpipers this certainly 
is the most unobtrusive and the shiest in its habits ; and its custom of creeping among the grass, like a 
little mouse, causes it to be very seldom seen. When flushed, which is never until you nearly tread upon 
it, it rises with a faint single call-note, flies for a very little distance, then suddenly drops ; and it is next to 
impossible to get it up a second time without a dog. I only found one nest, in a high-fell meadow.” 
Mr. Dann informed Mr. Yarrell that “this Sand[)iper is by no means uncommon during the breeding- 
season in Lulea, and Tornea Lapmark, frequenting grassy morasses and swamps, in small colonies, generallv 
in the same places as those frequented by the Wood-Sandpiper. It breeds also at Fogstuen, on the Dovre- 
^eld mountains (about three thousand feet above the level of the sea), in Norway, where it arrives at the 
latter end of May. On its first appearance it is wild and shy, and similar in its habits to the other species 
of the genus, feeding on the grassy borders of the small pools and lakes in the morasses ; on being 
disturbed it soars to a great height in the air, rising and falling suddenly like the Snipe, uttering the notes 
too whee, which are rapidly repeated. As the weather becomes warm its habits totally change — skulking 
and creeping through the dead grass, and allowing itself to be followed within a few yards, and, when 
flushed, dropping again a short distance off. It seems to lay its eggs later than others of this tribe 
generally do. I found some not sat upon on the 24th of June; and the last week in July the young were 
unable to fly — a period when all the other Sandpipers are on the move south. Its nest, like that of the 
