296 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



period is, to me, far more wonderful than any feature 

 of the habit of migration. 



Much to my surprise I heard and then saw a spotted 

 sandpiper. It came from over the fields and flew tow- 

 ards the river. I very much question if the elaborate 

 songs of some of our birds are always those that are 

 most enjoyed. Delightful as is bird-music to the con- 

 templative raml)ler, those notes, however brief, which 

 call np some pleasant spring morning of long ago will 

 ever rank highest in his estimation. To hear the first 

 "peet-weet" of these spotted sandpipers in April is one 

 of those delightful experiences which make for me a 

 red-letter day. Hearing it, I am thirty years younger 

 and abroad for the first time alone. The creek seemed 

 vastly wider then than now; the trees, taller; the flow- 

 ers, brighter; the turtles, monsters ; the stately herons, 

 veritable giants, and the restless "teeter" that startled 

 my timid footsteps, as I ventured to the water's edge — 

 that bird was, indeed, a wonder to my untrained eyes, 

 that as yet had learned to know but the sparrows in the 

 garden. I have heard all of our birds since then, but no 

 song, however elaborate, charms as does the first spring 

 notes of the spotted sandpiper. 



Unlike the great family of wading water-birds that 

 haunt the sea-coast and frequent the shores of inland 

 rivers, the "teeter," as I early learned to call him, is 

 well content with the most meagre of pools, ditches, 

 and temporary puddles of rain-water. Indeed, it can 

 slake its thirst with the dew and take kindly to the 

 highest and dryest of upland fields. It at once be- 



