THE SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 433 



our own hands have prepared; or bend over the side of 

 the boat and wash our few dishes of bright tin; or sit in 

 the tent door at the close of day reading or watching the 

 birds on this grand water-course. It reminds one, too, of 

 the ancient, patriarchal days when Abraham, Isaac and 

 Jacob dwelt in tents ; and thus carries us back from our highly 

 artificial and complicated age of living, and gives us a 

 glimpse of the quiet peace and simplicity of the olden 

 times^-of the sweet infancy of human history. What an 

 object of beauty is a new wall-tent — almost as white as 

 snow — upon the clear roof of which, through the ever mov- 

 ing trees, play, by day, the shadows of the sunlight, and by 

 night, the shadows of the moonlight. My carpet, too, of 

 rich green-sward intermixed with a variety of small plants, 

 is a real study in botany. Here I rest sweetly on the very 

 bosom and near the heart of nature. 



THE SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 



The most constant bird-note along the river and the shore 

 is the rapidly uttered^^-rf, wcet, meet, weet, weet, or wreet, wreet, 

 wreet, wreet, of the Spotted Sandpiper {^Tringoides macularius), 

 a most common and characteristic bird throughout North 

 America; unlike most of its tribe, which go far north 

 for nidification, it breeds from Texas to Labrador, and as 

 abundantly along the waters of the interior, as in the vicin- 

 ity of the sea. Its well pronounced notes express the very 

 soul of sweet content and cheerfulness. Who could be the 

 victim of care or melancholy, nesting in the quiet haunts 

 enlivened by such sprightly tones ! Scarcely less melodious 

 are they than the tender utterances of the piping Plover. 

 Indeed, but few of the sylvan songsters can render their 

 strains more suggestively pleasing. On the ground or in 

 the air, it is exceedingly graceful. As the bird alights and 

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