Shore-bird Shooting 363 



white ; breast, gray, tinged with darker ; under parts, white, 

 streaked on flanks and under tail-coverts with dusky brown ; the 

 plumage lacks entirely the chestnut and brown of the spring. 



Young — In the young the feathers of the back are tipped with white 

 in winter plumage. 



Downy young — Hair brown above, becoming grayish white on head ; 

 spotted with black on head, lores, back, wings, and flanks, and 

 with white or golden yellow on back, wings, and rump ; lower 

 parts, grayish white. 



Measurements — Length, 8.50 inches; wing, 5 inches; culmen, 1.20 

 inches ; tarsus, .90 inch ; tail, 2.50 inches. 



Eggs — Four in number, pale brownish buff, mottled with dark 

 brown, and measure 1.50 by 1 inches. 



Habitat — -In North America, breeds in Greenland, Cumberland, 

 Melville Peninsula, northern shore of Hudson Bay and probably 

 west to Herschel Island, and is said to have bred in Vermont. 

 Winters in southern Greenland and probably Labrador, and from 

 Nova Scotia south regularly to Long Island, New York, and ir- 

 regularly to Bermuda, Florida, the Great Lakes, and upper Mis- 

 sissippi Valley to Missouri. In the eastern hemisphere, breeds 

 in Norway, northern Russia, and northwestern Siberia, Nova 

 Zembla, Spitzbergen, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. Winters 

 in Norway, Iceland, the Faroes, Great Britain, and south to the 

 Mediterranean, and has been recorded once from South Africa. 



A bird of the remote North, the purple sand- 

 piper comes within our boundaries only in the 

 coldest weather. In Maine and New England, 

 these birds arrive in December and frequent the 

 rocks and rugged beaches along the wildest part 

 of the coast, occasionally in flocks of some size ; 

 but as a rule they are seen in twos and threes and 

 often alone. The purple sandpiper is exceedingly 

 gentle and pays no attention to man's presence, 

 searching intently for its food among the rocks left 



