PECTOEAL SANDPIPER. 55 



propelling itself with double rapidity and in perfect silence. 

 It runs with great agility, and probes the sand or wet 

 earth, immersing its bill up to the base.' 



They feed on small Crustacea, beetles, and other insects 

 and larvae, with which they swallow a few seeds; and they 

 also subsist on some species of sea-weed, and absorb small 

 fragments of stone. For the former-named, they bore with 

 the bill in the sand. 



The note is a low plaintive whistle. 



Male; length, eight inches to eight inches and three quarters, 

 or a little over that; bill, dark dusky brown towards the tip, 

 orange brown about the base; from it a dusky line extends 

 to the eye, and over it a white streak. Iris, dark brown; 

 head on the sides, greyish white tinged with brown, and 

 streaked with dusky black along the shaft of each feather; 

 on the crown, dusky brown, the feathers with dark central 

 streaks and rufous tips; neck on the sides, greyish white 

 with a tinge of brown, and each feather streaked along the 

 shaft with dusky black; on the back and the nape, dark 

 brown with lighter-coloured margins to the feathers; chin, 

 white; throat and breast above, greyish white, the latter 

 tinged with pale brown and yellowish, with a dusky black 

 streak along the shaft line of each feather; below white. 

 Back, dark blackish brown, with lighter-coloured margins to 

 the feathers, in summer ferruginous or ochreous, in winter 

 pale. 



The wings expand to the width of one foot three inches 

 and a half; the first quill feather is the longest. Greater 

 and lesser wing coverts, dark brown, with lighter-coloured 

 edges to the feathers; primaries, dusky black, the shaft of 

 the first white; secondaries, dusky black, each with a narrow 

 edge of white; tertiaries, dark brown, with lighter-coloured 

 margins, in summer ferruginous. The tail, much graduated, 

 has the two middle feathers, which are the longest, black 

 with pale brownish white margins, and in summer broadly 

 edged with ferruginous, the others grey brown or brownish 

 black, tipped and edged with yellowish white or yellowish 

 brown, according to the season; upper tail coverts, black, 

 glossed with purple, the feathers edged and tipped with 

 ochreous, which becomes pale in winter; under tail coverts, 

 white. Legs and toes, yellowish olive green brown; claws, 

 dusky black. 



