Snipe, Sandpipers, etc. 



on centre of abdomen; rump, upper and under tail coverts 

 and flanks white, barred with dusky; tail ashy brown, 

 bounded by dusky brown and tipped with white. Bill, 

 legs, and feet black. In winter — Top of head and back of 

 neck brown, streaked with soiled white; back and shoulders 

 ashy gray, the feathers edged with a lighter shade or white ; 

 under parts white, the neck and breast spotted and barred 

 with gray. 

 Rai^e — ^Nearly cosmopolitan ; nesting in the northern half of the 



globe and migrating to the southern half in winter. In the 

 'nited States more common, during the migrations, along 

 the sea coasts than in the Mississippi valley route southward. 

 Season — Spring and autumn migrant; May and June; July to 

 November. 



Like King Canute, this beach robin that Linnaeus named for 

 him seems to defy the waves, as, running out after them, it 

 would fain bid them keep back until it has had its fill of the 

 small shellfish left uncovered on the sand; but more quickly 

 running in again when the surf combs and breaks in a threaten- 

 ing deluge. Now it runs nimbly out in the wake of the receding 

 waters, apparently intent only on its dinner, but all the while 

 watching out of the corner of its eye an incoming wave, whose 

 march and volume it so accurately estimates. It is amazing how 

 closely and yet how certainly it escapes a drenching: the 

 tumbling surf never quite overtakes it on its race back, though 

 that last morsel it stopped for seemed inevitably fatal. It is a 

 fascinating, though a nervous, sort of occupation, watching the 

 sandpipers picking up their hurriedly interrupted meals. Dray- 

 ton gives a different reason for fastening Canute's name on the 

 knot, than the one popularly supposed to be the right one, in 

 his lines: 



" The Knot that called was Canute's bird of dd. 

 Of that great king of Danes his name that still doth hold, 

 His appetite to please, that far and near was sought." 



Not all the knot's food is picked off the surface : the worm, 

 snail, or small crustacean that has buried itself in the soft mud 

 must be probed for, snipe fashion. 



Gentle, easily decoyed birds, owing to their fondness for 

 society, usually a good sized bunch, if any, settles down on 

 the mud flat or sandy beach after a preliminary wheel in close 



210 



