204 



The Spotted Sandpiper 



their supposed enemy, and "make believe" to be wounded, so as to 

 decoy him away from the young; and they are apt, in their solicitude, to 

 alight in all sorts of places, even upon trees or bushes. 



P 

 Service 



A SPOTTED SANDPIPER SETTLING UPON HER EGGS 

 Photographed by Herbert K. Job 



The usual food of most shore-birds is aquatic insects ; but the 

 Spotted Sandpiper is also a bird of fields and pastures, and therefore 

 its range of insect-food is wider than most of its tribe, and includes 

 grasshoppers and locusts. Probably almost anything in the insect line is 

 acceptable, and thus it is a most useful bird to farmers: indeed, our 

 shore-birds are not given credit enough for the good 

 that ^ e y cl to agriculture. The Killdeer, Upland 

 Plover, and Spotted Sandpiper should be classed with 

 the Meadowlark and Bobolink, and not be put in the game-bird class at all. 

 The ruthless way that the shore-birds have been exterminated is 

 truly shameful. It is high time to give all the shore-birds protection, lest 

 species after species, now seldom seen, go to a sad extinction. 



Classification and Distribution 



The spotted Sandpiper belongs to the Order Limicola and the Family 

 Scolofiacidce Snipes and Sandpipers. Its scientific name is Actitis macularia. 

 It ranges over the whole continent, and breeds from Alaska and the wilderness 

 about Hudson Bay south to the borders of Mexico ; and it winters from the Gulf 

 States to southern Brazil. 



This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 

 Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 



