The question whether the Green and the Wood-Sandpiper are the same
species seems from Rennie's edition of Montagu's "Ornithological
Dictionary" to be undecided; but as a specimen has just come under
my notice which appears to me to clear up this difficulty, I shall
offer no apology for sending a description of it.
The length from the bill to the tail is 10 inches, to the end of
the toes, 11 3/4 inches; breadth, 17 inches; thigh-joint to the
toe, 5 1/2 inches. The bill measures 1 5/8 inches from the corner
of the mouth, and is very slender; the upper mandible, which is
black and slightly curved at the point, is a little longer than
the lower one, which is a dark green at the base and black at the
point; a dark streak extends from the base of the upper mandible
to the corner of the eye, and above it is a patch of dirty white
intermixed with minute dusky spots; a small circle of dirty white
surrounds the eyes; the chin is white; the cheeks, throat, and
forepart of the neck white, spotted with dusky, with which colour
a few laminae of each feather are marked their whole length. The
breast has a dappled stripe of the same colour as the throat
running down the middle of it; with this exception it is white, as
are also the belly, vent, and under tail-coverts. The crown of the
head and hinder part of the neck are a dingy brown, which on the
neck has a shade of ash colour; the bend of the wing and lesser
wing-coverts are a brownish black; the whole upper surface of the
plumage is of a glossy brownish-green, which is spotted on the
middle wing-coverts with minute white spots, that change to a
dingy yellow on the back, scapulars, and tertials, the last of
which have twelve spots on the outer margin of the feathers, and
six on the inner one; the tertials are very long, the longest of
them reaching to within a quarter of an inch of the extreme top of
the wing, which reaches to the end of the tail; the quill feathers
are wholly black, as are also the secondaries; the upper part of
the rump is black, and each feather is slightly tipped with white,
which forms small wavy lines on that part of the plumage; the
lower part of the rump and upper tail-coverts are pure white; the
tail, which is even at the end, consists of twelve feathers, which
are barred with black and white alternately.
At the end of Bewick's description of the Green Sandpiper there is
a very exact representation of a covert feather of the tail, and
an inner-wing covert, which will give a better idea of their
appearance than a page of letterpress. The legs are dark green,
the outer toe connected with the middle one by a membrane as far
as the first joint; toes very slender, middle one 1 1/4 inch long;
weight, 2 3/4 oz. Killed on the 17th September, 1831, near
Stonyhurst.
I have been thus minute in my description from a wish to clear up
the doubt that appears to exist as to the identity of these two
birds. The one I have now before me is, undoubtedly, the Green
Sandpiper of Bewick, but it corresponds in so many particulars
with the Wood Sandpiper of Montagu, and appears to combine so many
of the peculiarities of both without exactly agreeing with either,
that I think it proves their identity satisfactorily. The glossy
green of the upper plumage and the barring of the under wing-
coverts and the tail identify this bird with the Green Sandpiper;
whilst on the other side the yellowish spots on the scapulars and
tertials, the black rump, the length of the leg, and the web
between the outer and middle toes are characteristic of the Wood
Sandpiper of Montagu.
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