YELLOW-SHANKED SANDPIPER. 639 



It has a sharp whistle of three or four notes, when about 

 to take wing, and when flying. These birds may be 

 shot down with great facility, if the sportsman, after 

 the first discharge, will only lie close, and permit the 

 wounded birds to flutter about without picking them up ; 

 the flock will generally make a circuit, and alight re- 

 peatedly, until the greater part of them may be shot 

 down . 



Audubon mentions that the Yellow-shanks is much 

 more abundant in the interior, or to the westward of the 

 Alleghany Mountains, than along the Atlantic coast, 

 although it is also met with on the whole extent of the 

 latter from Florida to Maine. In the Carolinas and the 

 Floridas they are pretty numerous, in the former betaking 

 themselves to the rice-fields, and in the latter to the wet 

 savannahs. They frequent estuaries and the muddy 

 edges of salt marshes ; sometimes on the margins of clear 

 inland streams, and, indeed, I could hardly be able to 

 mention a district in which the species is not to be seen 

 from the beginning of September until May, when the 

 greater number retire northward, although some remain 

 and breed even in our Middle States ; as Nuttall says, 

 " They are seen in the neighbourhood of Boston in the 

 middle of June. I found a few on the coast of Labrador, 

 but did not succeed in discovering their nests, which was 

 the more surprising, as these birds breed in considerable 

 numbers about Pictou." The nests are described as placed 

 among the grass on the edges of the rivers and large ponds 

 of the interior. 



In very dry weather, I have observed this species on the 

 uplands searching for grasshoppers and insects. On the 

 shore their food consists of diminutive fishes, shrimps, 

 worms, and aquatic insects. 



Sir John Richardson says, " This is a very common 



