district to which I am referring this bird is generally
known as either “ Solitary ” or “ Summer-Snipe.”
From my own experience I am inclined to think that
this species finds its living principally on soft muddy
spots, and is comparatively seldom to be found frequenting
banks of shingle or sand. It exhibits a
remarkable partiality7 for certain ponds in our pasture-
lands, and where one or two Green Sandpipers are
found in August or September at these pools we almost
always find one or two at the same season every year.
It is not very often that circumstance permits a
close observation of these birds, as they are very wary ;
but I have once or twice had the opportunity of watching
one at close quarters; they appeared to me on these
occasions to be less constantly in motion than the
Common Sandpiper, and, after a close examination of a
patch of mud and many snaps at flying insects, the
birds, in the instances to which 1 allude, retired to a
clod of earth on the pond-bank, and drawing up one leg
remained motionless, except for an occasional jerk of
the tail, for a considerable time. When alarmed, the
Green Sandpiper darts up to a great height in the air
with a very vigorous flight, and constantly utters a shrill
trisyllabic whistle, alarming all the Snipes that may be
in the neighbourhood, and has often caused me much
vexation on this account; the present bird, however,
generally makes off to a distance at once, and from the
Snipe-shooting point of view is not such a nuisance as
the Redshank, which flits round the marsh from which
it rises with constant outcry, as if it was the appointed
sentinel of the Snipes.
I cannot find any positive record of the present bird’s
breeding in our Islands, although I feel convinced that
it occasionally does so; for evidence in favour of my
view on this subject I must refer my readers to the
4th edition of ‘Yarrell’; my personal experience on
this point will be found recorded in article 149 of my
“ Notes on the Birds of Northamptonshire ” in the
‘Journal of the Natural History Society5 of that county.
The Green Sandpiper generally selects an old nest of
some other species for its nursery, often at a considerable
height from the ground. I quote from “ Yarrell,”
ed. supr. tit., to the effect that the eggs have been found
in Pomerania in the abandoned nests of Song-Thrush,
Jay, Blackbird, Mistletoe-Thrush, Wood-Pigeon, once in
that of the Red-backed Shrike, often in squirrels’
“ dreys,” sometimes on the ground, and in various other
situations at from 3 to 35 feet in elevation, but always
in proximity to ponds. I have met with the Green
Sandpiper at various seasons in every part of Europe
that I have visited.