232 BULLETIN 14 6^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Behavior. — This is an attractive and inoffensive species, sociable 

 in its habits and met with in flocks of considerable size out of the 

 breeding season, when their simultaneous maneuvers on the wing 

 are a very characteristic feature of the great estuaries, the flocks 

 appearing to change from light to dark as the upper or under sur- 

 faces are exposed. They may also be seen on the mud flats, making 

 short runs at intervals, when the movements of the legs and feet 

 are so rapid that the eye can not follow them. 



Voice. — John T. Nichols contributes the following : 



A rather clear, not very loud, low-pitched whistle, given on the ground as 

 much as in the air, rather infrequent. This may be written Icruip or puik, 

 occasionally distinctly two syllabled and suggesting the semipalmated plover's 

 call, but lower pitched. It was heard in late September from several birds 

 loosely associated with a larger number of scattered dunlin on tidal sands north 

 of Liverpool. They usually took wing in silence, and the species seems to be 

 a rather silent one as seen here and elsewhere on British shores in September. 

 They were very likely not traveling, and their voice therefore not comparable 

 with that of the semipalmated on home shores. Also the note described is 

 very likely not analogous with the full, loud-flight note of the transient semi- 

 palmated plover. 



ETiemies. — During the autumn and winter months the flocks are 

 occasionally harried by a migrating merlin {Falco colwiiharius 

 aesdlon), and some clutches of eggs are annually destroyed by 

 marauding Corvidae (crows) and Laridae (gulls). On some parts 

 of the coast which are much exposed, great damage is done by excep- 

 tionally high tides, as many nests are built close to the high-water 

 mark. 



Fall. — In Greenland Manniche (1910) observed that the old birds 

 left in pairs about the first week in August, as soon as the young were 

 grown up. The young birds immediately went to the shores and 

 estuaries, consorting with young sanderlings and turnstones and 

 leaving for the south early in September. At the Westmann Isles 

 in south Iceland they leave between September 20 and October 10. 



Winter. — In the British Isles the wintering birds are to be met 

 with in flocks on most of our larger estuaries. "When on the wing 

 they sometimes associate with dunlin and also occasionally with 

 redshanks. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Breeding range. — In the Old World, commonly in the British 

 Isles and sparingly in the Faroes and Iceland; also probably on 

 Bear Island and a few pairs in Spitsbergen as well as on Waigatz, 

 Kolguev, and Nova Zembla. On the European Continent, from 

 the Arctic Ocean south to the Mediterranean, chiefly on the sea- 

 coasts, and only locally by lakes and rivers. In the Mediterranean 

 it is local on some of the islands and nowhere plentiful. The north 



