SPOTTED SANDPIPERS 99 



animation to every shore in the continent from the 

 Gulf to the Arctic Sea. They are at home by the 

 great lakes and by the drying ponds and failing 

 streams, also along the coasts, by mountain lakes, 

 forest-bordered rivers, and the sloughs of the open 

 prairie* They seem in fancy to have become imbued 

 with the moving restlessness of the untiring attack 

 of the water upon the land. When they fly in a short 

 detour their quivering wings seem divided into four 

 by long white marks across the feathers. Although 

 they indulge in long night flights from the perpetual 

 summer of the Isthmus, they locate freely from the 

 Gulf to the northern limit of their range. Like all the 

 feathered migrants, they have long known the sus- 

 taining power of the evening and the night air, and 

 human inventors with their awkward imitations have 

 become equally wise. Night flights have given an air 

 of mystery to bird migrations, but there has been a 

 gradual revelation of their secrets* 



On the sandbar Spotted Sandpipers have nested 

 with familiar confidence in spite of the city's 

 aggression. A startled noisy dash, when fear over- 

 comes the maternal instinct, reveals the cause of 

 alarm and anxiety a nest hollowed in the sand 

 and carelessly lined with weeds and grasses. Four 

 unnaturally large and dusky eggs, blotched with 

 brown, lie snugly with their small ends together, the 

 pride of the distressed mother, now running appeal- 



