spotted Sandpiper 251 



The least sandpipers, peeps, ox-eyes or stints, 

 as they are variously called, are only about the 

 size of sparrows — too small for any self- 

 respecting gunner to bag, therefore they are 

 still abundant. Their light, dingy-brown and 

 gray, finely speckled backs are about the colour 

 of the mottled sand they run over so nimbly, 

 and their breasts are as white as the froth of 

 the waves that almost never touch them. 

 Beach birds become marvellously quick in 

 reckoning the fraction of a second when they 

 must nm from under the combing wave about 

 to break over their little heads. Plovers rely 

 on their fleet feet to escape a wetting. Least 

 sandpipers usually fly upward and onward if a 

 deluge threatens; but they have a cousin, the 

 semipalmated (half-webbed) sandpiper that 

 swims well when the unexpected water sud- 

 denly lifts it off its feet. 



These busy, cheerful, sprightly little peepers 

 are always ready to welcome to their flocks 

 other birds — ring-necked plovers, turnstones, 

 snipe and phalaropes. If by no other sign, 

 you may distinguish sandpipers by their con- 

 stant call, peep-peep. 



SPOTTED SANDPIPER 



Do you know the spotted sandpiper, teeter, 

 tilt-up, teeter-tail, teeter-snipe, or tip-up, which- 



