BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 267 



washes up the sand, bringing small shell-fish to the surface 

 of the beach, as a placer miner washes out gold in his pan, 

 and the birds, nimbly following the recession of the wave, 

 rapidly pick up the exposed shells ere the return of the surge. 

 They are fond of the spawn of the horsefoot crab, which, often 

 in company with the Turnstone, they dig out of the sand, 

 sometimes fighting the former birds before they can claim 

 their share. With the flow of the tide, which drives them 

 from the flats or the tide-washed beach, the Knots seek either 

 the beach ridge, some shoal above high-water mark or the 

 salt marsh. They are prone to alight on outer half-tide 

 ledges, where they find small crustaceans and other forms of 

 marine life among the seaweed. They are so attracted to 

 such places and to beaches where sea-worms are plentiful 

 that they will return to them again and again in the face 

 of the gunners' fire, and this habit accounts in part for their 

 diminution. 



Mackay says that they eat the larvae of a cutworm, which 

 he has found in their throats, and that their food is similar to 

 that of the Black-breasted Plover, with which they often asso- 

 ciate. Most authors, both in this country and Europe, state 

 that their food, both on the flats and on the beach, consists 

 of very small moUusks of several species. Dr. Townsend says 

 that small periwinkles {Littorina) and mussels {Mytilus edulis) 

 almost always are found in their stomachs. 



The Red-breasts are decoyed easily by imitating their note 

 or that of the Black-breasted Plover. The ease with which 

 they may be taken will prove their bane unless all spring 

 shooting can be stopped on the Atlantic coast. 



