SPOTTED SANDPIPEE 79 



species. Indeed it is the best known of our sandpipers, not only 

 because of its extensive breeding range, extending from coast to coast 

 and northward into Alaska and Labrador, but by reason of its 

 individual and peculiar habit of flight and its characteristic notes. 



Almost every inhabitant of the United States, sometime during the 

 year, may meet this graceful little wader stepping delicately along 

 the margin of some sandy pond, the shore of the sea, or skimming 

 from perch to perch on the rocks bordering a mountain stream. 



Poised well above the ground on its slim greenish-yellow legs it 

 walks slowly and carefully along the shore, picking up a bit of food 

 now on this side, now on that. It goes forward with a switching 

 motion, head reached well forward and a little lowered. Except 

 when creeping up within reach of an insect or when its attention is 

 riveted on the snapping up of a bit of food the tail is almost continu- 

 ously in motion up and down. At the least alarm the motion is 

 increased to a wider arc until the posterior half of the bird's body is 

 rapidly teetering. A little increase in alarm and the bird is off on 

 vibrating wings held stiffly and cupped with the tips depressed, sail- 

 ing along the shore away from danger. As the bird takes wing it 

 gives, almost without exception, its whistled call, peet-weet-weet^ a 

 call so associated with the bird that Nuttall long ago give it the name 

 peet-weet. 



Spring. — The spotted sandpiper moves northward earlier than the 

 other sandpipers. It enters the transitional zone in late April and 

 early May, its time of arrival coinciding very closely with the 

 chewink. another ground feeder. It returns to its breeding ground 

 inconspicuously, never passing by in the large flocks characteristic of 

 many sandpipers, but appears on the first day of its arrival running 

 about on the shore of its chosen bit of water, apparently settled for 

 the season. In this habit of not gathering into flocks it resembles its 

 relative the solitary sandpiper. 



Wright and Harper (1913) speak of a few birds, left behind after 

 most of the species had spread over the country to the north, tarrying 

 in the Okefinokee Swamp till late in the spring : 



The spotted sandpiper was a distinct surprise as a summer resident of the 

 swamp. Not only is this several hundred miles south of its known breeding 

 range, but one would not expect it to find a suitable haunt in the Okefinokee. 

 The lakes and rivers are practically shoreless ; they are simply open spaces in 

 the otherwise continuous cypress swamps. However, the logs and driftwood 

 near the edges of Billys Lake serve as teetering stands ; half a dozen were seen 

 here on May 11, one on June 5, and still another a few days later. The species 

 probably does not breed in this latitude. 



Courtship. — The courtship of the spotted sandpiper has not been 

 observed very minutely. Some of the few published reports on the 

 subject show a discrepancy in details, and one, giving an instance of 



