284 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



was pretty often (in some places very often) a little 

 black, or else a brown, spider (sometimes quite a large 

 one) motionless on the snow or ice ; and therefore I am 

 constrained to think that they eat them, for I saw them 

 running and picking in exactly such places a little way 

 from me, and here were their tracks all around. Yet 

 they are called graminivorous [sic]. Wilson says that 

 he has seen them feeding on the seeds of aquatic plants 

 on the Seneca River, clinging to their heads. I think he 

 means wool-grass. Yet its seeds are too minute and in- 

 volved in the wool. Though there was wool-grass here- 

 abouts, the birds did not go near it. To be sure, it has 

 but little seed now. If they are so common at the ex- 

 treme north, where there is so little vegetation but per- 

 haps a great many spiders, is it not likely that they feed 

 on these insects ? 



It is interesting to see how busy this flock is, explor- 

 ing this great meadow to-day. If it were not for this 

 slight snow, revealing their tracks but hardly at all con- 

 cealing the stubble, I should not suspect it, though I 

 might see them at their work. Now I see them running 

 briskly over the ice, most commonly near the shore, 

 where there is most stubble (though very little) ; and 

 they explore the ground so fast that they are continu- 

 ally changing their ground, and if I do not keep my 

 eye on them I lose the direction. Then here they come, 

 with a stiff rip of their wings as they suddenly wheel, 

 and those peculiar rippling notes, flying low quite across 

 the meadow, half a mile even, to explore the other side, 

 though that too is already tracked by them. Not the 

 fisher nor skater range the meadow a thousandth part 



