BIRDS OF THE SHORE AND MARSHES 217 



sign, you may distinguish sandpipers by their constant call. 



Across the narrow beach we flit. 



One little sandpiper and I; 

 And fast I gather, bit by bit. 



The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. 

 The wild waves reach their hands for it. 



The wild wind raves, the tide runs high. 

 As up and down the beach we flit — 



One little sandpiper and I. 



Almost every one is more familiar with Celia Thaxter's 

 poem about the little sandpiper than with the bird itself. 

 But if you have the good fortune to be at the seashore in 

 the late summer, when flocks of the friendly mites come to 

 visit us from the arctic regions on their way south, you can 

 scarcely fail to become acquainted with the companion of 

 Mrs. Thaxter's lonely walks along the beach at the Isles of 

 Shoals where her father kept the lighthouse. 



The Spotted Sandpiper 



Length — 7.5 inches. A trifle larger than the English spar- 

 row. 



Male and Female — ^Upper parts an olive ashen color, 

 spotted and streaked with black; Une over eye and under 

 parts white, the latter plentifully spotted with round 

 black dots large and small, but larger and closer on the 

 male than on the female, the smallest marks on throat; 

 inner tail feathers like the back, the outer ones with 

 blackish bars; secondaries and their coverts broadly 

 tipped with white; some white feathers at bend of wing; 

 white wing lining with dusky bar; other white feathers 



