SOLITARY SANDPIPER. 131 



I shot a single example of this species last autumn at the mouth of the 

 Potomac. It was standing ou the banks of a little pool^ apparently taking 

 no notice whatever of the large and small flocks of other Sandpipers 

 feeding on the mud-flats at no great distance. American naturalists 

 describe its habits as very similar to those of its Old-World representative. 

 Like that bird^ it prefers inland pools and rivulets to the sea-sliore^ and is 

 comparatively unsocial in its disposition^ being very rarely found iu flocks 

 and seldom associating with other Sandpipers. Whether the similarity in 

 the habits of the two species extends to the mode of nidification is not 

 known. Possibly the cause of its nest remaining hitherto undiscovered is 

 to be found in the fact that it also builds in trees. 



The Solitary Sandpiper may at once be distinguished from its Old-World 

 relative by the colour of its rump and upper tail-coverts^ which are not 

 white, as in that species, but brown sparingly spotted with white, like the 

 back. It is intermediate in size between the Green and Wood- Sand- 

 pipers ; but in having the shaft of the first primary brown instead of 

 white, and in the colour of the wing-coverts, scapulars, axillaries_, under 

 wing-coverts, &c., it resembles the former, but diff'ers from the latter. 

 Besides the diff'erence in the colour of the rump already pointed oiit, 

 the adult Solitary Sandpiper in spring plumage has the base of the 

 inner web of the first primary mottled with white, showing an apparent 

 affinity with the Bufi'-breasted and some other Sandpipers. The seasonal 

 changes of plumage are precisely the same in the Solitary Sandpiper as in 

 the Green Sandpiper, except that in the young in first plumage of the 

 former the spots are huffish white instead of chestnut-buff. It is not 

 known that there is any difference in the colour of the soft parts. Young 

 iu down are absolutely unknown. 



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