98 SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER, 
ing a nail held crosswise in the hand, though it is louder 
and more full. This performance is generally restricted 
to late evening and early morning during the spring, but 
is occasionally practiced in the fall. 
Most of our transient visitant Snipe are true shore 
birds. Many of them are classed as game birds, and have 
Semtoatinnted now become so uncommon that, as 
Sandpiper, before remarked, it requires a special 
Ereunetes pusillus. knowledge of their ways in order to 
pee e find them. But there are some species 
too small to be worthy the sportsman’s attention, and they 
are often numerous on our beaches. They are generally 
known as Peeps or Ox-eyes, but in books are termed 
Semipalmated Sandpipers—active little fellows, with 
black, gray and rusty backs and white under parts, who 
run along the shore, feeding on the small forms of life 
cast up by the waves. They are sociable birds, and even 
when feeding the members of a flock keep together, while 
when flying they move almost as one bird. 
These Sandpipers visit us in May, when journeying to 
their summer homes within the Arctic Circle, and return 
in July, to linger on our shores until October. Their 
call-note is a cheery, peeping twitter, which probably 
suggested one of their common names. 
PLOVERS. (FAMILY CHARADRIID2.) 
Most ‘Plovers differ from Snipe in possessing three 
instead of four toes, and in having the scales on the tarsi — 
rounded, not square or transverse. Their bill is shorter 
and stouter than that of Snipe, and they do not probe 
for food, but pick it up from the surface. 
Although several species visit dry fields and uplands, 
they are ranked as shore birds or bay birds, and, as with 
Snipe, the species large enough to be ranked as game 
