Bii'd-Lifc in hithradnr. -55 



■vevy few of" these or they have become so identified i-n 1ial)its 

 with several other species with which they agree very strong- 

 ly that I cannot disentangle the meshes with the slightest 

 satisfaction. h\ my larger work the only notice of them that 

 I can find — taken in the Fall when all the sandpipers were 

 common — reads : An occasional Ereiinefe.s pusillKx was seen, 

 but they were rare. My manuscript notes come to my rescue 

 here somewhat, and say: September 20, at Green Island, in the 

 river St. Lawrence, I shot several from fiocks that landed on 

 the flats. They were rather tame, and alighted all over the 

 island which was covered with small stones, lumps of gray 

 moss, and sand ; pools of water were here and there all along 

 the surface of the island. On such a place the glitter of the 

 particles of the whole, even in a clouded sky, j)revented one 

 from distinguishing objects very close beside them. Here the 

 " peeps" were very common, and they would spring up from 

 the sand before me in every direction, and so near me that I 

 could often have almost reached tliem with a good-sized pole. 

 In every direction that I walked I drove them up in scores 

 always singly or in twos or threes. When thus frightened a- 

 way they would either alight again in the sand alone and run 

 about or remain perfectly quiet until I had passed or again 

 flushed them ; or, more often, a great many of them would 

 gather in a flock on the edge of some pool of water, to be 

 hunted from one end of the island to the other, or until they 

 broke up again or left entirely. The singular part of my 

 diary reads : September .30, I shot one at Old Fort Island 

 and only one all the Fall. I found it with a large number of 

 bomipartii. I am greatly of the opinion that my notes are 

 correct, and that the locality where I did most of my shore 

 shooting while on the coast did not happen to be as favorable 

 for this species as for the others I secured there. The bird is 

 certainly common along portions at least of the T^abrador 

 coast, and it could not easily be mistaken for any other spe- 

 cies, as its peculiarities are too decided. The singular habits 

 which these birds possess of wheeling abour in an apparently 



