1 88 Union Bay 



ments, and jerks are usually a sign of weakness or illness and 

 sometimes very serious illness. Some who casually watch a 

 bird perform think it is an action peculiar to that individual. 

 As a matter of fact many kinds of birds make like move- 

 ments in a greater or less degree, and among the shorebirds 

 there are some whose life is a continual "dipping." 



Four birds with such habits regularly visit the marsh. One 

 is there nearly all the year, the others may be seen usually 

 in spring, but are almost certain visitors in August. Chief 

 among them is the spotted sandpiper, said to be the most 

 common sandpiper in the United States and certainly the 

 most common one in the state of Washington, where it can 

 be seen in season on almost every pond, stream, and lake. 

 When I faltboat on a western Washington river I flush them 

 from almost every sand and gravel bar I pass. I watch their 

 twinkling curved flight as they lead me for a few rods before 

 they return to the upper end of the bar. Sometimes I have 

 watched them feed along the stream margin, always active, 

 almost always moving along as they feed, their small ash- 

 olive bodies held low, and the large brown spots on their 

 whitish underparts identifying them instantly. These birds 

 utter a series of mellow notes as they fly, notes so distinctive 

 that they are frequently called peet-weets. But most distinc- 

 tive about them is the almost continual raising and lowering 

 of the rear end of the bird, a process so noticeable that it has 

 been given descriptive names such as tip-up, teeter-tail, 

 teeter-peep, tilt-up. Elliott Coues, in his Key to North Amer- 

 ican Birds, has described this action more clearly than any 

 other ornithologist I have read. 



As often as the Teeter-tail stops running, the foreparts are lowered a 

 little, the head is drawn in, the legs are slightly bent, while the tail 

 bobs up with a jerk, and is drawn down again with the regularity of 

 clock work— as if the tail were spring-hinged, always liable to fly up, 

 and requiring constant presence of mind to keep it down decently. 

 It is amusing to see the male perform during the mating season, swell- 

 ing with amourousness and self-sufficiency till it looks twice as big as 



