LEAST SANDPIPER. 139 



strength and energy necessary for the period of reproduction. 

 It is indeed certain that those stragglers which, from age or 

 disabihty, remain, as it were hermits, secluded from the rest of 

 the wandering host, do neither propagate nor fatten while thus 

 detained through summer in the warmer climates. Of this fact 

 we have already mentioned instances, in the case of straggling 

 Curlews killed in this vicinity by the 1 8th of July, — a period 

 when the main mass of the species are engaged in feeding or 

 just hatching their tender young. 



This little Sandpiper, which we have named in honor of Wil- 

 son (certainly not being the species first intended as Tringa 

 pusilla), leaves us by the close of September, and departs from 

 the Middle States towards its remote hibernal retreats in the 

 course of the month of October. The present species and 

 some others appear occasionally to feed partially on vegetable 

 substances as well as on animals, as I have found in their 

 stomachs pieces apparently of zostera roots and flowers of the 

 marsh plantain. 



The Peeps still throng our shores each spring and autumn, and 

 are the same active and confiding creatures that Nuttall found 

 them. Their general breeding-area is from Labrador to the Arctic 

 Ocean, but a few nests have been discovered south of the St. 

 Lawrence ; for the nesting habits of these birds are no longer 

 unknown. 



