It prefers coasts of a muddy rather than a sandy character, haunting saltings, estuaries, and muds. Here, its actions are much the same as those of all these little sand birds; it feeds both by day and night; and often retires during high water to some wet land near the sea, to wait the ebb. The food of this species consists of crustaceans, worms, molluscs, and insects. Its note is described as being louder than that of the Dunlin. Absolutely nothing is known of the nidification of the Curlew Sandpiper, and its egg has never yet been described. It is, to say the least, remarkable that some of the great breeding-places of these Arctic birds have not yet been discovered—a fact that seems to suggest a vast area of land somewhere in the vicinity of the Pole. DUNLIN. Owing to the great seasonal changes of plumage which this Sandpiper—the _Tringa alpina_ of most naturalists—undergoes, considerable confusion has prevailed concerning it. Linnæus described birds of this species in summer plumage as distinct from individuals in winter plumage, naming them _alpina_ and _cinclus_; but Temminck (and before him B. Meyer) with greater discernment united both under the name of _T. variabilis_. Birds in the two plumages have also received distinctive colloquial names; in summer dress, the bird is known as “Dunlin,” in winter dress as the “Purre.” Other local names of wide application to this species are “Ox-bird,” “Stint,” and “Plover’s Page,” the latter being derived from the habit of the Dunlin to accompany a Golden Plover, flying to and fro over the moors, where the two species chance to be nesting. Perhaps the Wryneck has in like manner, gained the name of “Cuckoo’s Mate” from its habit of flying in attendance with that bird; although some writers attribute the term to the fact of the two species appearing in our country about the same time.