214 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



States and British North America up to about lat. do" ; passes 

 the Bermudas on migration ; winters in Mexico, the West Indies, 

 Central America, and the northern portions of South America. 



Allied Forms. — Totanus hypolencus, the Old World repre- 

 sentative, a British species, and treated fully in the preceding 

 chapter. 



Time during which the Spotted Sandpiper may be 

 taken. — August I St to March ist. 



Habits. — It is not known that the habits of the Spotted 

 Sandpiper differ in any important respect from those of its Old 

 World ally. It frequents similar haunts, the banks of rivers, and 

 the margins of lakes. In autumn it gathers into little parties, 

 probably the broods and their parents, and these appear to 

 migrate in company. Its call-note is very similar, and most 

 persistently uttered as it rises alarmed from the ground ; it 

 possesses the same habit of beating the tail up and down and 

 nodding the head. It feeds on similar substances, and like the 

 Common Sandpiper appears never to be very gregarious, and 

 often seen solitary. 



Nidification. — In its habits during the breeding season, and 

 in the choice of a locality for its nest, it also resembles the 

 Common Sandpiper. Audubon, however, states that in Labrador 

 it made a somewhat elaborate nest of moss, grasses, and feathers, 

 built under the ledges of the rocks ; but like a good many more 

 of this naturalist's statements, it is open to the gravest doubt. 

 The eggs of the Spotted Sandpiper are four in number, and pale 

 buff in ground colour, spotted, and more rarely blotched with 

 very dark reddish brown, and with underlying markings of pale 

 gray. They measure on an average i'3 inch in length by I'o 

 inch in breadth. The eggs are smaller than those of the Common 

 Sandpiper, and the markings are smaller, darker, and more 

 clearly defined. It is not known that more than one brood is 

 reared in the year. 



Diagnostic Characters. — Totanus, with the same diagnosis 

 as that given for the preceding species, but with all the secondaries 

 uniformly barred. It should be remarked that the adult in summer 

 plumage is spotted with black on the underparts. Length, 7>^ to 

 8 inches. 



