254 LONG-BILLED RUNNING BIRDS. 



packed bands, flickering white as they cant in flight ; 

 but when the sea uncovers the shore-flats they hang 

 on its retreat, rushing about beside it with something 

 of the fury of feeding Starlings as they pick the 

 small life that forms their food from the sand or 

 mud. If put up, they circle out over the sea, now 

 lost to view as their dark upper parts are turned 

 shorewards, now flashing broadly white as their 

 under parts are exposed by all with beautiful 

 regularity. The alarm-note is harsh, unlike the 

 usual musical piping of birds of this kind. The 

 black patch on the under parts of the Dunlin 

 is distinctive in a bird of its size, only the much 

 larger Golden Plover and the Gra,y Plover having a 

 marking of this kind. 



LITTLE STINT— 6 inches. Like a diminutive Dunlin, 

 >vith a rufous summer and an ashy -brown winter 

 phase in its colouring, but at all times without the 

 black belly-patch of the Dunlin. It visits the eastern 

 shores of the British Islands in spring and autumn, 

 chiefly at the latter season, and occurs principally 

 on the south-eastern coasts of England. It is our 

 smallest wading bird. 



PURPLE SANDPIPER. — Form, like Common 

 Sandpiper (plate 109). 8^ inches. General colour 

 above blackish, glossed with purple, blackest from 

 lower back to tail ; head and neck dull blackish ; 

 under parts white ; bill brown ; legs dull yellow. 

 Winter migrant. 



The Purple Sandpiper is known almost exclusively 

 as a winter inhabitant of our coasts, resembling the 



