194 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
black), never spotted below (though the chest may be clouded or in- 
distinetly streaked in the fall), and the bill is black, slender, perfectly 
straight, and always a little over an inch long. 
Distribution.—North America, breeding occasionally in the northern 
United States, more commonly northward, and migrating southward as 
far as the Argentine Republie and Peru. 
Unlike most of our sandpipers this bird is essentially solitary in its habits 
and is never seen in compact flocks. Four or five may be found feeding 
on the edge of the same pool, and once or twice I have seen a score or more 
in the compass of an acre, but scattered among hundreds of other waders, 
thrown together by a common interest in the unusually good feeding ground. 
While the Solitary Sandpiper frequents all the places in which the other 
sandpipers are found, it evinces a special preference for pools in the woods, 
and for marshy places which have become overgrown more or less with thick- 
Fig. 55. Solitary Sandpiper. 
From photograph of mounted specimen. (Original.) 
ets and brush. Not infrequently it is found about the mossy, leaf-choked, 
branch-strewn puddles in the deep swamps, where the big trees shut out 
the sky above, and the Large-billed Waterthrush keeps it company among 
the decaying stumps and half submerged roots. When flushed it usually 
flies with unexpected swiftness, rises at a sharp angle to a height of several 
hundred feet, and then flies wildly for a moment or two, and often returns 
and alights near the place from which it started. Almost invariably it 
utters a sharp whistle of three or four notes as it rises, not particularly 
loud, but high-pitched, penetrating, and very characteristic. While 
feeding it runs about and bobs its head and tail somewhat like a common 
Tip-up, but the movements are much more abrupt and jerky, and there 
is far less of the graceful swinging motion so prettily shown by that bird. 
