to read to you a portion of a letter, dated November 27, 1861, which I received from my

friend Pastor Theobald, of Copenhagen. He says as follows :— ,

“<The nidification of Totanus ochropus 18 SO remarkable that I do not fear to troublig you with the
history the Forester Hintz has given me. He writes :—‘‘ This pa I succeeded in foes the nest of
s. On the 9th of May I took four eggs of this bird ; they were found in an old nest
ave been incubated about three days. The very same day there
s bird, also found in a Thrush’s nest. The 10th of May

«T have now

Totanus ochropu
of Turdus musicus, and seemed to h
were brought to me four other eggs of thi
feet high, on an
highest I have ever seen. Three young ones had just been hatched ;

2 irc 1e bird having chosen an ol “aye
there was shown to me a nest, thirty old eee a mee

nest of a Squirrel. This nest was the
in the fourth egg the bird was about to break the shell. |
edge of a water-pool. The 11th of May a nest with four fresh eges was found, but they did not come into
ay hands ; this was in an old Pigeon’s nest on a Pinus rubra, and full of dry pine-leaves. The 20th of
found in an old Thrush’s nest, the two missing birds

One jumped down and concealed itself on the

May two eggs, almost burst by the young, were
The 22nd of May four young ones, apparently but a few hours

having most likely already left the nest.
rius collurio, in a juniper three feet high. The 24th of May four

old, were found in the old nest of a La
found in the hole of a Populus tremula thrown down by the wind. The year before,

young ones were
this year Zotanus ochropus had chosen

Muscicapa luctuosa had ‘ts nest in the trunk as it lay on the ground 5
the same opening. When I approached the trunk, the young ones, perhaps four-and-twenty hours old,
jumped away and hid themselves in the grass among the branches. All these nests were near the water,—

two on the edge of a rivulet, the others on wet morasses, the distance from the water being at most

six feet.” ’”
It will also be seen from Mr. Newton’s paper, that this bird breeds in Sweden, as it doubtless does in
latitudes of the Old World. The eggs are generally four in number, of a very

hickly spotted all over with ochreous brown; they are

Russia and all similar
pointed form, and of an olivaceous stone-colour, t
about an inch and a half in length by an inch and an eighth in breadth.

The sexes are very similar both in size and colouring ; and the young very soon acquire the adult livery,
but continue for some time more numerously spotted than the adults. I am indebted to Mr. I. Edmund
Harting for a very fire example of this bird, killed by him at Kingsbury, in Middlesex, on the 5th of
November 1864, and for the following note which accompanied it :—‘* The Green Sandpiper is always the last
to leave us; but I have hitherto considered it unusual to meet with it after September ; this year, however,
I have observed it frequently throughout October, and now as late as the early part of November. On the
22nd of December, 1863, several were observed along the feeder of our reservoir; but I thought this an
exceptional case. In the spring, the Green Sandpiper comes to us about the 25th of April, and, after
remaining until the middle or third week of May, leaves for six weeks, and appears again early in July.
It seems strange that this species is not found breeding in England, considering that it spends so great a
portion of the year therein.”

I am also indebted to the Duke of Argyll for an opportunity of examining a very fine specimen shot by
his Grace, in the spring of 1859, at Chenies, in Buckinghamshire, which, he observes, ‘“‘ does not seem a
suitable locality for such a bird. The plumage is remarkably beautiful; the white of the lower parts, with
the upper and under tail-coverts, is of the most spotless purity.”

In further confirmation of the above statement respecting the breeding-habit of the Green Sandpiper,
I may quote the following passage by Mr. Wheelwright from ‘The Field’ of March 22, 1862 :—‘‘ In no
one work on natural history, British or foreign, have I ever seen it noticed that this bird lays its eggs in an
old deserted nest, every one stating that the nest of this species is either in sand, or on a bank, or among
the grass by the side of a stream. Yet in Sweden, where the bird is comparatively common, so much so
that I generally procure five or six sets of eggs every year, I have never by any chance found them
anywhere else than in an old nest in a fir tree.”

Although from the above evidence there is no reason to doubt the fact of this species laying its eggs in
the old nests of other birds, squirrels’ dreys, &c., and in bunches of moss on the branches of trees, it is
probable that it also sometimes incubates on the ground, like the other members of its family.

The Plate represents the Green Sandpiper, of the size of life, with its four eggs in a nest which may
have been a pigeon’s, on a branch of the common Pine.