122 With Rod and Gzin in New England 



" It is a considerably larger bird than the summer yellow legs," 

 added the Doctor. 



" Yes," replied the Judge, " the little yellow legs is only about ten 

 or eleven inches in length, while the other is fifteen inches. I think the 

 common yellow shanks, as it is often called, is one of the best known of 

 the marsh birds. It is found almost everywhere along our coast, and, in 

 fact, on the whole continent." 



" Yes," I added, " it is found throughout the Union. It arrives in 

 New England early in May. It is social in its habits, and gathers in 

 flocks, frequenting the muddy flats and the shallow ponds on the marshes, 

 where it gleans its food of minute shell-fish, worms, shrimps, and other 

 small Crustacea. It is the Totatiusflavipes of scientists. I have often seen 

 it wading in the pools in pursuit of minnows. 



" It is almost continually calling to others of its species, and its three 

 short, shrill notes are a welcome sound to the gunner. It stools well, 

 obeying the sportsman's whistle readily, and as it comes to the decoys it 

 glides smoothly along, gradually lowering its long yellow legs and alighting 

 among the decoys without hesitation. It will return to the gunner 's whis- 

 tle, even after the flock has been fired into. I have found the summer 

 yellow legs in considerable numbers on the meadows at the upper end of 

 lake Umbagog, Maine, and on the muddy shores of the dead waters of 

 rivers emptying into the Schoodic lakes; they came readily to my whistle, 

 and they were sometimes accompanied by wisps of eight or ten Wilson's 

 snipe, which, to my surprise, came to my whistle as freely as the others." 



" Gentlemen," exclaimed Hiram, approaching our tent, " shall we 

 cook the supper " ? 



" Supper " ! said the Judge, "why, it seems as if we had but just eaten 

 dinner. Bless my soul, it 's nearly six o 'clock." 



While the supper was being prepared we fished the upper pool, " more 

 for the exercise," as the Doctor said, " than with the expectation of get- 

 ting a salmon." 



For a half hour we cast diligently, but with no response except from 

 a chance trout or two. 



" Our talk about sandpipers," said the Judge, " has brought a visita- 

 tion from them ; see, there 's a whole family " ! As he spoke he pointed to 

 a pair of spotted sandpipers with four half-grown young that were running 

 down the shore, uttering their familiar notes, tweet, tweet, tweet, as they 

 clambered among and over the pebbles and small rocks. 



"Yes, Judge," I answered, "they have hatched their young near 

 here. It is one of the few species of waders that breed in our latitude. 

 Perhaps none of our summer birds are distributed so generally as this. 

 Every pond and stream has two or three pairs breeding on its shores, and 

 it is as abundant in the most thickly settled as in the more retired and 



