220 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
several yards with depressed body and trailing wings 
as if disabled. It then rises and flies, with a plaintive 
weet, weet, weet, to a safe distance, from whence it 
anxiously watches the course of events. Both birds 
generally display extreme solicitude for their newly- 
hatched young. We have seen a female run shrieking 
along a wall, with trailing wings and expanded and 
deflected tail, while we, only a foot or two away, stood 
over the downy chicks huddled together at the foot of 
the wall. This demonstration failing to lure us from 
her offspring, she dropped from the wall and rolled and 
tumbled in the grass at our very feet. The male, mean- 
while, kept up an anxious clamour from a stone wall, 
although at a more respectful distance. 
We have, however, sometimes seen both parents, 
though anxiously calling, retreat to a distance of 
several yards from the spot where we were searching 
for the young, whose presence is often betrayed by 
their feeble answering pipe as they lie concealed in 
the long grass. Their behaviour in this respect difters 
from that of the young of many wading birds. Young 
Ringed Plovers, for instance, will crouch absolutely 
quiescent amongst the pebbles on the beach, where 
the safety gained by their protective coloration would 
be discounted if they replied to their parents’ warning 
cries. 
SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 
TOTANUS MACULARIUS (Linneeus). 
[ American specimens of the Spotted Sandpiper have 
been so often palmed off upon credulous collectors as 
British-killed birds, that no record of its occurrence 
should be accepted without a searching investigation. 
