WATER BIRDS 



the mud-peep or least sandpiper, wMeh is 

 more often found in the marsh, and the sand- 

 peep or semipalmated sandpiper, a typical 

 sandy colored beach bird. In flocks large and 

 small they eagerly glean the sand, running all 

 together up the beach when threatened by a 

 wave and following it as it recedes. Again 

 they spring into the air and twist and turn 

 like one bird with military precision, display- 

 ing now their gray backs, now like a flash their 

 white breasts. The young, with the faint 

 smoky wash on their breasts, come about the 

 middle of August, a month or so later than the 

 earliest arrivals among their elders, and at 

 first are very tame and confiding, not having 

 yet learned the depravity of the human race 

 or the range of their guns. They soon learn, 

 or pay the penalty with their lives. One never 

 tires of watching these birds, and desolate 

 indeed would be the beach without them,— yet 

 their extermination stiU goes on. 



In the spring one is sometimes treated to 

 their flight song, a musical quavering trill, 

 which the bird pours out eontmuously as it 

 rises on quivering wings. The song ends with 

 a few sweet notes that suggest some of those 

 of the goldfinch, and, after the excited bird 



153 



