SHORE AND MARSH BIRDS. Sandpipers 



breeding-season the male has a curious habit of inflating his 

 throat to a wonderful degree so that it hangs down upon the 

 breast like a great tumour. It is a popular bird with 

 gunners, and is known by them as Grass Snipe. 



Least Sandpiper : Tringa minutilla. 



Peep. 



* p r „ . , Plate 66. Fig. 2. 



Length : 6.50 inches. 



Male and Female : In summer plumage, above dark brown, feathers 

 edged with red. Neck ash-gray, spotted with black. White eye 

 stripe. Wings dusky, rump and tail coverts black. Below 

 grayish white. In winter becoming gray and white like many 

 other species. Bill black ; legs dull green. 



Season : Common migrant ; April and May, August and September. 



Breeds : North of the United States. 



Bange: The whole of North and South America. Accidental in 

 Europe. 



The smallest of all Sandpipers, known everywhere by 

 the familiar name of Peep — the cry they constantly give 

 when congregating on the beaches and flats at low tide. It 

 has a pretty way of dancing up to the shallow, frothy 

 ripples, meeting them, seizing some tiny morsel, and retreat- 

 ing with a sort of courtesy. All the Sandpipers have a half- 

 shy, half-sociable way of flitting afoot about the water's 

 edge that makes them very sociable. Often at low tide I 

 have walked down the beach toward Penfield Bar with 

 three or four of these little birds for companions ; they will 

 run on ahead, never letting me quite come up to them, and 

 yet half expecting me to follow. This habit gave motive to 

 one of the best bits of verse that Mrs. Celia Thaxter has left 

 with us : — 



" I watch him as he skims along, 



Uttering his sweet and mournful cry ; 

 He starts not at my fitful song, 



Or flash of fluttering drapery ; 

 He has no thought of any wrong ; 



He scans me with a fearless eye. 

 Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, 

 The little sandpiper and I." (3d verse.) 

 b 241 



