468 GRALLATOKES. 



from tlie refuse of tlie ocean, or quietly and intently 

 [)rol)ino' the moist sands in search of worms and 

 small shell-fish ; sometimes running quickly before 

 the advancing surge, and profiting by what the wave 

 leaves on its retreat. Their plumage is renewed 

 twice in the year, and their summer, or, as it has 

 been called, their nuptial attire, is very different 

 from that with which they are clothed during the 

 rest of the year. The upper plumage is black, with 

 the feathers margined wath reddish-brown and 

 white, and the whole lower surface rich reddish- 

 cliestnut. In the winter it is ashy-grey above, and 

 white shaded with grey beneath. The colour of 

 the two sexes is nearly alike, but the females are 

 distinguished by their superior size. 



The typical species, — 



The Knot Sandpiper (Tringa camUus), is a winter 

 resident in Great Britain ; numbers of them arriving early 

 in autumn, and spreading along our shores, take up their 

 residence in bays, or at the mouths of rivers and other 

 flat parts of the coast covered with ooze and sand, in 

 which they find abundance of minute shell-fish, that con- 

 stitute their usual food. In such situations, collected in 

 immense flocks, whose evolutions upon the wing are 

 curious and very beautiful, tliey reside till the latter 

 part of April or the beginning of May, when they 

 again depart to the Arctic regions for the purposes of 

 incubation and of rearing their young. Their polar 

 migration extends to very high latitudes, as the Knot is 

 enumerated by voyagers as inhabiting the icy shores of 

 Greenland and Spitzbergen. 



When searching for food, the Knot Sandpii:>er traces 

 the flow and recession of the waves along the beach with 

 great nimbleness, wading and searching among the loose 

 sand foi- its favourite food, wliich consists of the small, 

 thin, oval, bivalve shell -fish, of a white or pearl colour, 

 and not larger than the pips of an apple, which are 

 common on the coast. These usually lie at a short depth 

 below the surface, but in some places are seen at low 

 water in heaps, like masses of wet grain. During the 

 latter part of summer and autumn these minute shell-fish 



