THE COMMON SANDPIPER. 325 



frames become more robust, and they daily become 

 more fitted for the long and perilous journey that awaits 



them. 



The Sandpiper, like the Swallow, needs the presence 

 of perpetual summer, and when the first days of autumn 

 arrive we see them probably more active than usual, and 

 far, very far more noisy. The time of departure has 

 arrived. Suddenly we miss them from their sandy 

 wastes, no longer see their little footprints marking out 

 their wandering course on the mud flats. They have left 

 us for more genial climes, and that, too, in the night— 

 for birds of this order that migrate invariably do so at 

 that time ; or if only of a wandering disposition, we find 

 they journey from one place to another under the cover 

 of darkness. I cannot find that the Sandpiper assembles 

 in flocks for the purpose of migrating, and it is very 

 probable they do not. The young, however, migrate 

 with their parents, and as these parties near their southern 

 destination they may probably unite in companies to 

 spend the winter ; but this, after all, is mere conjecture, 

 and must be taken for what it is worth. 



