206 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



green-head flies and of mosquitoes in the salt marshes may diminish. 

 E. A. Preble (1923) examined two stomachs from birds shot in the 

 Pribilof Islands and found that one of them contained aunphipods 

 exclusively, the other the following items : " 23 seeds of bottle brush 

 (Hippuris vulgaris), 50 per cent; bits of hyclroid stems, 40 per cent; 

 and chitin from the blue mussel {Mytilus edulis), 10 per cent." 

 A. H. Howell (1924) reports as follows: "Of the 19 stomachs of 

 this bird collected in Alabama, practically all contained larvae or 

 pupae of small flies (Chironomidae) in a few bits of aquatic beetles 

 were found." Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1916) found in the stomach 

 of a bird taken in Porto Rico "the heads of more than 100 minute 

 fly larvae (75 per cent) and fragments of small beetles {Hetercerus 

 sp.) (25 per cent)." 



Behavior. — The least sandpiper has always been a confiding and 

 an unsuspicious bird, and these characteristics have increased since 

 it has been protected at all seasons. So diligent are they in their 

 search for food that they appear to take no notice of man if he 

 remain quiet, and they run about almost at his feet. They are 

 fascinating birds to watch. Not only are they gregarious, collect- 

 ing in large and small flocks on the migrations, but they are also 

 of a sociable disposition and associate amicably with other shore 

 birds, large and small. They run around among yellow legs like 

 pigmies among giants. A mixed company of several kinds of sand- 

 pipers and of plovers feeding together is a common sight. In flight 

 the different species, although in company, generally, but not 

 always, keep by themselves. 



In the marshes — which are their preferred feeding grounds, 

 although, as stated above, they are sometimes found on the beaches, 

 especially in the spring — they scatter widely, and one may flush one 

 bird after another, previously unseen in the grass. They soon unite 

 in a flock, however, and after circling about and turning now this 

 way, now that, with great nicety of evolution, drop down again sud- 

 denly, often near the spot from which they sprang. A single bird 

 flushed generally darts off in irregular zigzags, very much after the 

 manner of a Wilson snipe, calling as it goes. 



In feeding in marshes they frequent the short grass and also the 

 open sloughs or mud holes. Here they snap up insects or probe 

 diligently for larvae in the mud and shallow water. They are fond 

 of the mud and sand flats in the tidal estuaries at low water where 

 they appear to find plenty of food, and they run about on the eel 

 grass. In all these places they spread out in an irregular fashion 

 when feeding. Such gluttons are they that they are generally loaded 

 with fat on the southward migration and they are often very fat in 

 the spring. Notwithstanding this, their wind seems to be excellent 



