TRINGOIDES MACULARIUS : SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 24 1 



SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 



Tringoides MACULARIUS (L.) Gray. 



Chars Bill straight, only about as long as head or tarsus, grooved 

 for about | its length. Tarsus about as long as middle toe and 

 claw ; tail rounded, half as long as the wing. Bill and feet pale- 

 colored. Above, silky ashy-olive (color of a cuckoo) with a 

 coppery lustre, finely varied with blackish. Line over eye and 

 entire under parts, pure white, fully spotted with dusky — the 

 spots larger and more crowded on the female than on the male, 

 wanting in the young. Secondaries and their coverts broadly 

 tipped with white ; tail incompletely white-barred. Feet pinkish- 

 white, drying yellowish ; bill flesh-color, black-tipped. Length, 

 about 7.50 ; extent, 13.50; wing, 4.00; bill, tarsus, and middle 

 toe with claw, each, 0.95-1.00. 



This is one of the very few Waders, if indeed not the 

 only one, which apparently nests with equal readiness in 



Fig. 56. — Head of Spotted Sandpiper. Nat. size. 



almost any portion of its North American range. 

 Hence it is a summer resident in New England, where it 

 arrives the latter part of April or beginning of May, and 

 remains until October, being diffused in abundance all 

 over our country wherever there is water. It is a 

 familiar inhabitant of moist meadow-land and the brook- 

 side, where its low, devious flight, its amusing postur- 

 ing, and its mellow "peet-weet " are known to all who 



