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BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 335 
Spotted Sandpiper. Tip-up. Teeter. 
Actitis macularia. 
Length. — About seven and one-half inches. 
Adult.— Above, olive-brown, ash-tinged; below, white, spotted with rounded 
blackish marks; a row of white spots on the wing; outer tail feathers 
white-barred. 
Young. — Breast unspotted, with a slight grayish cast on white of breast. 
Nest. — On ground, on the shore of a pond or river, or in a field or pasture. 
Eggs.— Buffy, thickly speckled with dark brown and black; very large for the 
size of the bird, and quite pointed at small end. 
Season. — April to September. 
The Spotted Sandpiper, once a common and familiar bird 
along all our ponds and streams, is still fairly common in 
suitable localities throughout the State. It is not a gre- 
garious species, nor does it travel much along the seashore, 
and so it has largely escaped the decimation that many 
other Sandpipers have suffered at the hands of the gunner. 
It is the only Sandpiper commonly found about inland 
waters in June and early July. As it walks it repeatedly 
raises and lowers the hinder part of its body with a teeter- 
ing motion. This is particularly noticeable when the bird 
is alarmed, and uttering its cry of peet-weet, peet-weet. This 
note is often repeated when the bird is startled, and may be 
heard along the sandy margin of ponds or rivers in the dusk 
of evening. Here it wades in, at times up to its belly. 
On occasion it can swim well, and sometimes when wounded 
and hard pressed it will dive deeply, using its wings and 
flying swiftly under water, like a Loon. It often builds its 
nest and rears its young in or near cultivated lands, at a con- 
siderable distance from any water. The young are able to 
run about soon after they are hatched, and they wander away 
from the nest, brooded and cared for at need by the mother, 
who is very solicitous for their welfare. Their safety lies 
in their protective coloring. They are fed largely on insects, 
and the parents in summer seem to be very fond of similar 
food, which they pick up about cultivated fields. Like all 
other birds of the field, this Sandpiper catches grasshop- 
pers and locusts. Six of these birds dissected by Professor 
Aughey in Nebraska contained ninety-one locusts and one 
hundred and forty-two other insects. 
