THE PECTORAL SANDPIPER. 445 
the beach, where it has all the habits and activity of the 
other Sandpipers, running along the edge of the surf, and 
gleaning in the waves and on the sands its food of small 
marine animals. It mixes with the other species, but is 
readily distinguished from them by the brightness of its 
plumage. It is in best condition for cabinet preservation 
in the vernal migration. It passes leisurely to the most 
northern sections of the continent, where it passes the 
breeding season. Maggillivray describes the breeding habits 
as follows : — 
“The nest is a slight hollow in a dry place, having a few bits of 
withered heath and grass irregularly placed in it. The eggs, four 
in number, are ovato-pyriform, an inch and four-twelfths in length, 
eleven-twelfths in breadth, oil-green or light greenish-yellow, irregu- 
larly spotted and blotched with deep-brown; the spots becoming 
more numerous toward the larger end, where they are confluent. 
The young, like those of the Golden Plover and Lapwing, leave 
the nest immediately after exclusion, run about, and, when alarmed, 
conceal themselves by sitting close to the ground and remaining 
motionless.” 
This species, when it returns in the autumn, late in Sep- 
tember, is very fat, and is considered delicate and palatable 
as food. 
ACTODROMAS, Kavr. 
TRINGA MACULATA. — Vieillot. 
The Pectoral Sandpiper. 
Tringa maculata, Vieillot. Nouv. Dict., XXXIV. (1819) 465. 
Tringa pectoralis, Nuttall. Man., Il. 111. Aud. Orn. Biog., III. (1835) 601; 
V. 582. Jb., Birds Am., V. (1842), 259. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Bill rather longer than the head, compressed, slightly depressed and expanded at 
the tip; nasal groove long; wings long; legs rather long; tibia with nearly its lower 
half naked; toes free at base, flattened underneath and slightly margined; tail rather 
short; middle feathers pointed; entire upper parts brownish-black; all the feathers 
edged and tipped with ashy and brownish-red; rump and upper tail coverts black, 
some of the outer feathers of the latter edged with white; line from the bill over 
