The Spotted Sandpiper 



which is only heightened by the Quaker drab adornment of the upperparts 

 and the apparently serious view of life which the owner takes. Absurd 

 as the action is in adults, it tests the risibles still more sorely when a 

 toddling youngster, bristling with pin-feathers, discovers the same uncon- 

 trollable ambition in his rear parts, and says How-do-you-do backward, 

 with imperturbable gravity. 



Solitary Sandpiper would be a name most fitting, were it not already 

 appropriated by Tringa solitaria; for of all Shore-birds the Peet-weet is 

 least sociable inter se. Family parties, to be sure, hold together until 

 the young are ready to fly. Indeed, I am not sure but that family ties 

 here are the strongest of all — while they last. Your solitary heart loves 

 deepest, and yearns for its own with the most abiding tenderness, even 

 when its way lies apart. But a Peet-weet loves solitude, and the only 

 grown person he will allow around is his mate, and here only so long as 

 family responsibilities require. Each pair occupies a circumscribed stretch 

 of territory, and will suffer invasion up to a certain boundary mark; but 

 just as surely, each pair is happiest when it has a little lakelet or a moun- 

 tain meadow all to itself. And, lastly, the name "Spotted" is a misnomer, 

 applicable only for a certain portion of the year, — April to September, 

 namely. In the winter season his breast is as guiltless of spots as Sir 

 Gallahad's scutcheon. At this season also, when he frequents, or rather 

 zmfrequents, our southern coast, love of solitude has become for him a 

 madness. Although the bird is scarcely molested under pretense of its 

 being game, we would think from the way it dodges a gun — even one held 

 in the hand of an honest scientist — that the Spotted Sandpiper regarded 

 himself as a very Curlew Sandpiper for rarity, or else that he was a train 

 robber with a price upon his head. I have played peekaboo with these 

 gentry for an entire afternoon, and then secured a specimen only under 

 cover of darkness. These astute pipers frequent the wildest rocky points 

 of our southern coasts and islands, and they brave the buffet of the surf 

 as surely as Aphriza or Heteroscelus (who knows, by the way, but that 

 these vaunted heroes of the surf are nothing better than brookside loafers 

 at home?) When surprised — and he always gets up first — Actitis hustles 

 out over the water as though he were heading for Patagonia. If you keep 

 on your way, the chances are that the bird will describe a huge semilune, 

 then hit a spot downshore on your own back track. Or, if you stand your 

 ground, the brave piper is quite capable of sustained and leisurely flight 

 over the water, where he skims close to the surface and follows the swell 

 and fall of every wave, in the effort to tire you out, so that he may return 

 to the identical spot he left. 



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