ANIMALS OF THE DUNES 151 



and bits of drift on the storm beach. After a storm one may pick 

 up hundreds of species along shore, some of them from regions 

 far inland. 



Flesh flies and carrion beetles are to be found feeding on and 

 depositing their eggs in the carcasses of fish and other dead 

 animals. Digger wasps and robber flies are attracted here by 

 the numerous insects that are crawling half-dead from the water. 

 Crows and herring gulls are also drawn by the carrion, the latter 

 are present in great flocks in the fall, fishing offshore as well as 

 feeding along the beach. There are many long-legged shore 

 birds that feed on these insects and on the crustaceans, wading 

 out in the shallow water to hunt them or running along the 

 wet sand. The least and semipalmated sandpipers are fairly 

 common. In spring and fall, particularly the latter, the beach 

 is alive with knots, sanderlings, and turnstones; godwits, cur- 

 lews, and willets are also often to be noted, while the piping 

 plover is not only found frequently here but occasionally nests 

 in the same area. The Hudsonian curlew, the willet, and the 

 Hudsonian godwit, the latter, especially, becoming rare, are all 

 birds of good size (15 to 17 inches long) with slender bills over 

 2 inches long. That of the curlew turns down distinctly, a 

 distinguishing feature. The under parts of the willet are white, 

 those of the godwit, chestnut. Knot, sanderling, semipalmated 

 and least sandpipers also have long bills to use as probes. The 

 birds are smaller, however, loj, 8, 6 J, and 6 inches long 

 respectively. All are mottled black and gray or buff abov^e. 

 The sanderling has three toes and wing bars; the others, four 

 toes and no wing bars. The small size of the last two serves to 

 make their recognition certain. The breast of the semipal- 

 mated is faintly streaked or spotted with black; that of the 

 least, heavily streaked or spotted with brown. The turnstone, 

 which is some 9I inches long, has a back strikingly mottled in 

 black, brown, and white and a white patch at the base of the 

 tail. The piping plover is small (7 inches), very pale colored, 

 almost ghostlike in its invisibility. The upper parts are ashy; 



