206 Tue Brrps Asout Us. 
wander far inland in the Middle States, but in the 
interior of the continent, along our large rivers, they 
are abundant in the early autumn or late summer 
southward migration. 
The true Sand-pipers are all most interesting birds, 
and as so many of them are common to our inland 
streams and one is almost a land bird, they are 
pretty generally known. Along our river-shores 
particularly these birds congregate in large num- 
bers, and in August, when all nesting duties are 
over, to see a troop of “ tell-tales” or “ yellow-legs” 
running over the muddy flats at low tide and hear 
their mellow whistling, as they take wing and go 
speeding off to other watery wastes, is a pleasant 
experience to him who loves a rational outing,—an 
outing not merely for muscular exercise, but for 
mental. To realize what bird-life is we must doa 
great deal more than merely collect the creatures and 
measure to the thousandth of an inch their hind toes. 
It is necessary to see the bird in life, and this phase 
of bird-life, where we have the animal on land yet 
forever in the water so far as length of limb will per- 
mit, is one of the most entertaining. But it is not 
only along the river-shore that we find the sand- 
pipers. There is a dainty spotted one that is at home 
even among the upland fields, and is as content with 
a tiny brook as where the water is miles in width. 
It is a bird, too, of our mill-ponds, and its cheery 
peet-weet is as certain a sign of the coming of warm 
weather when we first hear it as is that of any bird 
of the field or forest. With few exceptions, the sand- 
pipers are strictly migratory and breed in the far 
