Yellow-legs SHORE AND MARSH BIRDS. 



Dr. Coues, in his " Birds of the Northwest," gives a beau- 

 tiful picture of this bird in its Labrador breeding-haunts, 

 where the fogs hang low and wild waves rage, and the little 

 Sandpipers watch their half-sheltered ground-nest with 

 anxious devotion. ''Now, later in the season, when the 

 young birds are grown strong of wing, family joins family, 

 and the gathering goes to the sea beach. Stretches of sand, 

 or pebbly shingle, or weed-loaded rocks, or muddy flats, 

 bestrewn with wrack, invite, and are visited in turn; and 

 each yields abundant sustenance. The unsuspecting birds 

 ramble and play heedlessly, in the very front of man, un- 

 mindful of, because unknowing danger ; they have a sad 

 lesson to learn the coming winter, when they are tormented 

 without stint, and a part of their number slaughtered in 

 more civilized countries for mere sport, or for the morsel of 

 food their bodies may afford. Blasts fiercer than they ever 

 knew before, come out of the north ; autumn is upon them, 

 and they must not wait. Flocks rise on wing, and it is not 

 long before the beaches and the marshes of the states are 

 thronged." 



The Semipalmated (half -webbed) Sandpiper — Ereunetes 

 pusillus — also shares the name of Peep with the last species, 

 with which it flocks. It can best be distinguished from 

 the Least Sandpiper by it feet, which are half-wehhed, the 

 Least having no webbing. It is also slightly larger. 



Greater Yellow-legs: Totanus melanoleuciis. 



Stone Snipe. 



Plate XL Fig. 4. 



Length : 13-14 inches. 



3Iale and Female : Above dusky, spotted with black and white. Bill 

 green black ; over two inches long and slightly recurved. Be- 

 low white, streaked sparsely with gray on the neck. Rump 

 white, also tail feathers, which are barred with brown. Long., 

 thin, yellow legs. 



Season : A common migrant ; May and August to November. 



Breeds: In the cold temperate and sub-arctic portions of North 

 America, 



242 



