122 WADING BIRDS. 



of Nootka Sound. The great mass of their pigmy host re- 

 tire to breed within the desolate lands of the Arctic circle, 

 where, about the 20th of May, or as soon as the snow be- 

 gins to melt, and the rigors of the long and nocturnal 

 winter relax, they are again seen to return to the shores and 

 the swampy borders of their native lakes, in the inclement 

 parallel of 66°. Though shy and quailing on their first arri- 

 val, with many other aerial passengers of like habits, they con- 

 tribute to give an air of life and activity, to these most drea- 

 ry, otherwise desolate, and inhospitable regions of the earth. 

 Endowed with different wants and predilections from the 

 preceding hosts, whose general livery they wear, they never 

 seemingly diverge in their passage so far to the eastward as 

 to visit Greenland, and the contiguous extremity of northern 

 Europe, being unknown in the other continent ; and migra- 

 ting always towards the south, they have thickly peopled 

 almost every part of the country that gave them birth. 



The Peeps, as they are here called, are seen in the salt 

 marshes around Boston, as early as the 8th of July ; indeed, 

 so seldom are they absent from us in the summer season, 

 that they might be taken for denizens of the state, or the 

 neighboring countries, did we not know that they repair, at 

 an early period of the spring, to their breeding resorts in the 

 distant north ; and that, as yet, numerous and familiar as 

 they are, the nest, and history of their incubation is wholly 

 unknown. 



When they arrive, now and then accompanied by the 

 Semipalmated species, the air is sometimes, as it were, 

 clouded with their flocks. Companies led from place to 

 place, in quest of food, are seen whirling suddenly in circles, 

 with a desultory flight, at a distance resembling a swarm of 

 hiving bees, seeking out some object on which to settle. At 

 this time, deceiving them by an imitation of their sharp and 

 querulous whistle, the fowler approaches, and adds destruc- 



