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, KAUP. 



TRINGA MACULATA. Vieillot. 



The Pectoral Sandpiper. 



Tringa maculata, Vieillot. Nouv. Diet., XXXIV. (1819) 465. 

 Tringa pectoralis, Nuttall. Man., II. 111. Aud. Orn. Biog., III. (1835)601; 

 V. 682. /&., 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, 

 come of the outer feathers of the latter edged with white ; line from the bill over 



