TOTANUS SOLITAEIUS, SOLITARY TATTLER. 499 



places, over a much more extensive area than is generally supposed. 

 Indeed little has been put on record, or apparently known, respecting 

 its breeding resorts. Wilson says tbat it breeds on mountains in Penn- 

 sylvania, and such is undoubtedly the case. In Maryland and Virginia, 

 and in nearly correspondent latitudes in the West, 1 have shot birds in 

 August so young as to leave no doubt in my mind that they were bred 

 in the vicinity. Mr. Maynard makes substantially the same observation 

 about the Frauconia Mountains, in New Hampshire ; and I have found 

 young birds in July in Northern Dakota, about the pools of Turtle 

 Mountain. In the Carolinas I only observed it during the migration, 

 though Professor Gibbes marks it as resident. It seems to be very 

 retiring and secretive in its habits during the breeding season, which 

 may, perhaps, in part, account for the lack of observations renpecting it 

 at this season. At the same time it is not to be inferred that it is re- 

 stricted in its northern dispersion, for it occurs on the Yukon, where, 

 according to Mr. Dall, it arrives early in May. Other writers give it 

 from various portions of the fur countries. 



The only eggs supposed to be of the Solitary Tattler I have seen, are 

 two in the Smithsonian collection from Cleveland, Ohio (Dr. Kirtland). 

 The size is 1.50 by 1.05 ; the shape ordinarily pyriform. The ground is 

 clay-colored, without olivaceous or other shade. The markings are 

 heavy and numerous on the larger half of the egg, smaller and fewer 

 elsewhere. They are very dark — quite blackish-brown — lacking the 

 slightest shade of the rich umber or chocolate which most waders show- 

 more or less evidently. The shell-spots are similarly of a darker neutral 

 tint than usual. The identification of these eggs, however, is open to 

 question : they may be those of the Killdeer. 



About Washington, D. C, the Solitary Tattler is very common indeed 

 at certain seasons. It arrives from the South late in April, and for two 

 weeks or so is to be found in all suitable situations ; then none are to 

 be seen, except a few straggling young just at the end of summer, until 

 late in September ; when, after an equally late sojourn, the birds pass 

 on. In the Carolinas I have seen them nearly a month earlier in the 

 spring. They differ from most of their relatives in their choice of 

 feeding-grounds, or of places where they usually alight to rest while 

 migrating; a difference accompanied, I suppose, by a corresponding 

 modification in diet. Their favorite resorts are the margins of small, 

 stagnant pools, fringed with rank grass and weeds; the miry, tide-water 

 ditches that intersect marshes; and the soft, oozy depressions in low 

 meadows and watery savannas. They frequent, also, the interior of 

 woods not too thick, and collect there about the rain-puddles, the water 

 of which is delayed in sinking by the matted layer of decaying leaves that 

 covers the ground. After heavy rains I have seen them running about 

 like Grass Plovers, on open, level commons, covered only with short 

 turf. They also have a fancy, shared by few birds except the Titlarks, 

 for the pools of liquid manure usually found in some out of the way 

 place upon the thrifty farmer's premises. They find abundant food in 

 all these places; aquatic insects of all sorts, and especially their curious 

 larvse, worms, grubs, and perhaps the small-est sorts of molluscs ; with 

 all these, they also take into their gizzards a quantity of sand and 

 gravel, to help along the grinding process. With food to be had in such 

 plenty with little labor, the birds become, particularly in the fall, 

 extremely fat. 



They cannot be said with entire propriety to be " solitary," though 

 this name is well enough to indicate less social propensities than most 

 of the waders possess. I generally found from two or three to half a 



