80 Farley, Sandpipers at Plymouth, Mass. I. Jan. 



were also Red-breasted Mergansers. Snow Buntings were on and 

 off the beach with the Horned Larks. There was a flock of Red- 

 polls in the beach grass. Herring and Kittiwake Gulls were drop- 

 ping mussels and Black-backed Gulls uttered their raucous notes." 



On January 28 I was on the beach from 11 A. M. to 3.30 P. M. 

 It was cloudy but not cold. Some fine snow fell. There were 

 perhaps two inches in the beach grass and over the sand and pebbles 

 of the upper beach. But from high-water mark down to the tide 

 which had turned, the snow (or better, slush) was deeper — the 

 result of the last high tide. It lay in patches everywhere, while in 

 the water there were small pieces of floating ice. There were rela- 

 tively few bare or semi-bare spots on the beach that seemed fit for 

 shore birds. " As usual, I saw the three Sanderlings and the Red- 

 backed Sandpiper. It was good winter weather last week. The 

 23d was fair and colder than the 22d and the rest of the week was 

 wintry, though not excessively cold. As I got along the beach to 

 the sandspits where it broadens, there were the three Sanderlings. 

 They were on a piece of bare sand where a little inlet following the 

 falling tide ran into the sea. In this icy water they waded belly- 

 deep. After a few minutes they flew down the beach but soon lit. 

 Presently the Red-backed Sandpiper, uttering his note, flew close 

 by me and with a free flight-continued down the beach and lit with 

 the Sanderlings. (The Sanderlings show a tendency to keep 

 together, while the Red-back feeds in their neighborhood or not, 

 as it happens.) The three Sanderlings soon flew again still farther 

 down the beach, leaving the Red-back alone. Later he, too, flew 

 in the same direction. But after two or three minutes he came 

 back, flying freely and fairly high above the beach, and with a 

 great circle lit close beside me, (within three or four yards) seeming 

 curious of me. He was very nervous and full of little fitful starts. 

 After two minutes he flew, and making a great sweeping curve 

 high in air dashed off over the breakwater and across the neck, 

 apparently down into the grassy flats on the Inner Harbor side." 

 (It may be said here that beach birds in Plymouth Harbor have a 

 wide range of choice as to feeding loci for, as already remarked, a 

 good deal of the outer beach is exposed between tides, particularly 

 where the water shoals, while on the Inner Harbor side there is 

 more or less grassy shore and out in the water are the very extensive 



