LEAST SANDPIPER 



AND 



SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER 



By HERBERT K. JOB 



THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES 

 Educational Leaflet No. 52 



These two dainty little Sandpipers, smallest of their tribe, may well 

 be considered our representative shore-birds. The nocking of restless 

 bands of nimble sprites along the sea-coast and the larger inland bodies 

 of water is one of the most attractive sights in nature. Such a species 

 as the Spotted Sandpiper, though commonly seen running along streams 

 during its summer stay, does not gather in large and compact flocks ; so 

 that it is rather through the Least and -the Semipalmated Sandpipers 

 that the majority of persons who see shore-birds at all become familiar 

 with the pretty company that races along and across the beach, chased 



A LEAST SANDPIPKK JUST HATCHED 

 Photographed in the Magdalen Islands by Herbert K. Job 



by the waves, and with their masterly flight. The larger shore-birds, 

 alas! have been pretty well shot off, and in most parts of the country 

 are found, if at all, in small numbers, only in favorable spots, and by the 

 initiated. These tiny species that we are now considering remain the 

 commonest of their family, because the least attractive to gunners. 



They are too small for food purposes, and no one deserving of the 

 name of sportsman will, in these days, fire at their diminished ranks. 

 Nevertheless, they are in nothing like their former abundance. Instead 

 of the flocks of hundreds with which I was formerly familiar, two dozen 

 now is a large flock in many places, and rarely enough at that. 



