194 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



black), never spotted below (though the chest may be clouded or in- 

 distinctly streaked in the fall), and the bill is black, slender, perfectly 

 straight, and always a little over an inch long. 



Distribution. — -North America, breeding occasionally in the northern 

 United States, more commonly northward, and migrating southward as 

 far as the Argentine Repubhc and Peru. 



Unlike most of our sandpipers this bird is essentially sohtary in its habits 

 and is never seen in compact flocks. Four or five may be found feeding 

 on the edge of the same pool, and once or twice I have seen a score or more 

 in the compass of an acre, but scattered among hundreds of other waders, 

 thrown together by a common interest in the unusually good feeding ground. 



While the Solitary Sandpiper frequents all the places in which the other 

 sandpipers are found, it evinces a special preference for pools in the woods, 

 and for marshy places which have become overgrown more or less with thick- 



Fig. 55. Solitary Sandpiper. 

 From photograph of mounted specimen. (Original.) 



ets and brush. Not infrequently it is found about the mossy, leaf-choked, 

 branch-strewn puddles in the deep swamps, where the big trees shut out 

 the sky above, and the Large-billed Waterthrush keeps it company among 

 the decaying stumps and half submerged roots. When flushed it usually 

 flies with unexpected swiftness, rises at a sharp angle to a height of several 

 hundred feet, and then flies wildly for a moment or two, and often returns 

 and alights near the place from which it started. Almost invariably it 

 utters a sharp whistle of three or four notes as it rises, not particularly 

 loud, but high-pitched, penetrating, and very characteristic. While 

 feeding it runs about and bobs its head and tail somewhat like a common 

 Tip-up, but the movements are much more abrupt and jerky, and there 

 is far less of the graceful swinging motion so prettily shown by that bird. 



