( 573 ) 

 THE YELLOWSHANK. 



TOTANUS FLAVIPES, ViEILL. 

 PLATE CCLXXXVIII. Male. 



The Yellowshank is much more abundant in the interior, or to the 

 westward of the Alleghany Mountains than along our Atlantic coast, al- 

 though it is also met with in the whole extent of the latter, from Florida 

 to Maine. It exceeds the Tell-tale Godwit in numbers on the shores of 

 the Ohio, as well as on the margins of the numerous ponds and lakes in 

 the vicinity of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the river just mentioned 

 to New Orleans, and beyond that city southward. In early autumn, when 

 the sand-bars of the Ohio are left uncovered, these active birds are seen 

 upon them in small flocks, formed each apparently of a single family, 

 busily employed in searching for food, and wading in the water up to the 

 feathered part of their legs. When the water is high, they resort to 

 ponds and damp meadows intersected by small rivulets. In the Carolinas 

 and the Floridas they are pretty numerous, in the former betaking them- 

 selves to the rice-fields, and in the latter to the wet savannahs. They 

 are equally fond of frequenting the shores of our estuaries that are bordered 

 by salt marshes, on the muddy edges of which they find their food. I 

 have also met with them on the margins of clear streams in the interior 

 of the States, and indeed should hardly be able to mention a district in 

 which the species is not to be seen, from the beginning of September un- 

 til May, when the greater number retire northward, although some re- 

 main and breed, even in our Middle States, as Nuttall says they are 

 seen in the neighbourhood of Boston in the middle of June. I found a 

 few on the coast of Labrador, but did not succeed in discovering their 

 nests, which was the more surprising that these birds, according to my 

 friend Thomas MacCulloch, breed in considerable numbers about 

 Pictou. He describes the nest as placed among the grass on the edges 

 of the rivers and large ponds of the interior. 



The flight of the Yellowshank is very similar to that of the Tell-tale 

 Godwit. They generally run to some distance before they take to wing, 

 stop as if to discover your intention, vibrate their body backwards and 

 forwards, intimate by their cries the knowledge they have of the nature of 



