MEMORANDA ON THE PURPLE SANDPIPER.
37
timidity. Up the Medway, daring severe winters, Prentis13 has
shot them on the sea-wall marshes, where same have been
repaired with rock stone.
British field naturalists, as a rule, concur in their being shore
frequenters, scattered about in small parties, though when but a
few together, a Knot, Dunlin, or Ringed Plover is often associate
companion—witness the Canvey group. Patterson" even gives
them the appellation of "unsociable birds."
Circumstances alter cases, for Collett15 records countless con-
gregations, in thousands, on the outer rocks and islands off the
north and west coast of Norway. Thither under the influence
of the Gulf Stream their food is plentiful.
Moreover, it should not be lost sight of that the northern
regions is their summer muster, breeding home. During winter
season while in Britain and southerly, they are, so to say,
unsettled or on travel, and wander hither and thither in small
lots, whither food and other circumstances trend.
As case in point, Eagle Clarke16 avers that the Purple Sand-
piper regularly visits the Eddystone reefs in the late autumn and
winter to search for food during low water, returning to the
mainland at high tide when its (outer) haunts are submerged.
Authorities express the opinion that, though erratic, they
prefer rocky coasts and stony places near the sea, where their
skill in swimming and averting the breakers is most remarkable.
On the flat range of our south-eastern counties this habit is
seldom manifest, and never prominently ; the solitary or casual
few being usually seen trotting along the sea margin intently
inspecting and probing contents of weeds or scrimmage thereon,
Of their breeding habits in England only shadow of a shade
crops out. A female, shot on Breydon Water (Norfolk).
31st December, 1866, had ovary full of minute eggs.17 Harting18
refers to a young bird supposed to have been reared on the
Farne Isles, but nest not discovered.
Distribution.—In allusion to their distribution within our
County I cannot do better than refer to Miller Christy's hand-
13 Notes on the Birds 0/ Rainham, including District between Chatham and Sittingbourne
Lond. 1894, p. 66.
14 Notes of an East Coast Naturalist. Lond. (1904), p. 104.
15 "Norges Fuglefauna" (?)—quoted, but.without reference, by Dresser, Saunders, and
Seebohm, etc.
16 "A Month on the Eddystone Lighthouse,"—Ibis (1902), vol, ii. p. 261.
17 Gunn, in Naturalist. 1867, p. 177.
18 Handbook Brit. Birds (1901), p. 189.