Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ...shone, as brightly almost as at noontide. CHAPTER XIII THE PURPLE SANDPIPER To all who know our coasts--the dour shore-line of the North Sea or the Hebridean Isles with their surf-drenched cliffs, the purple sandpiper (erolia maritima) is a familiar bird. These active and cheery little waders are on our shores throughout the winter, and even up to the latter part of May, when they set out on their long northward flight to their Arctic nesting-grounds. From time to time stragglers have been found during the summer under conditions pointing to the fact that they may have been nesting in Britain. Thus Colonel Feilden shot two specimens on Barra Head, and two others on the adjoining island of Mingulay at the end of May.1 All the specimens were females, and it was conjectured that they were nesting, but that the males were brooding at the time they were shot. Again, it has more than once been presumed that the purple sandpiper nested on the Fame Islands, for birds have been seen there early in July. It is true that, like the turnstone, the purple sandpiper does at times remain on the coasts of Britain throughout the summer, but evidence is as yet lacking that they have ever actually nested with us. In Spitsbergen the purple sandpiper is by far the most numerous of the waders. Indeed, it is the only one found in any numbers. The ringed plover (charadrius hiaticula), the sanderlings and the dunlin (erolia al-pina) are indeed present in certain localities, but their appearance is so unusual that it is worthy of record, whereas the presence of the purple sandpiper is taken as a matter of course. 1 Dresser's " Birdj of Europe," Vol. 8, page 71. All of the larger waders are absent--golden plover, grey plover, curlew, whimbrel, ...