BIRDS NOT TRUE GAME. 307 
distinction, The Bartram’s sandpiper, Totanus Bar- 
tramius, unlike most of its relatives, is rarely, if ever, 
found on the sea-shore, frequenting upland downs, sheep- 
walks, and large short-grassed pastures in the interior, 
feeding on grasshoppers, and other small insects, snails, 
worms, grass seeds, and many wild fruits and berries, and 
becoming excessively fat, tender, and succulent. 
It is often found in company with the golden plover, 
which is frequently confounded with it under the name of 
the frost bird, and which, in those feeding grounds, becomes 
greatly improved in flesh and condition. 
The upland plover is, in the opinion of judges with 
whom I fully agree, the most delicate and delicious of all 
wild birds. It is often so fat that the breast bursts open 
on its striking the ground when shot, and the meat is the 
richest and most succulent that can be imagined. Its 
peculiar excellences are, that it never clogs; it is never 
greasy, nor has that rank, half-oily, half-fishy flavor, which 
is common, more or less, to all birds which feed on the salt 
marshes, and which is not entirely absent from the golden 
plover, even when he feeds on the upland. 
The Bartram’s sandpiper is about the size of the 
common pigeon, though far more gracefully and slenderly 
made, with extremely long pointed wings, and a slight re- 
curved bill. It is a shy, wary bird, and can hardly be 
approached on the open plains or downs which it frequents, 
within gunshot, unless under cover of some artifice or 
quaint device. I have occasionally walked up to it, near 
enough to kill a few by aid of Eley’s green wild-fowl 
cartridges, on the large open pastures in the vicinity of 
