SCHINTZ SANDPIPER. 97 



It is also observable that a single Schintz Sandpiper being 

 on the ground, is so little afraid of man, that one may watch 

 the motions and manners of this pretty bird with great ease : 

 this is so conspicuous that it may serve to point out what 

 species the individual belongs to. The peaceable nature of 

 this species is equally observable, as it associates not only 

 with every other species of Sandpiper, sanderlings, and stints, 

 but acts with any of them in concert as a subordinate subject. 

 Its call-note is best described by the word trree, trree ! 

 uttered in a shrill unmelodious manner. 



The food of the present species consists in aquatic insects, 

 and their larvae, small worms of all descriptions, and small 

 beetles which it finds by the water's edge and on moist 

 meadows, particularly where cattle feed. 



In consequence of the late return of this bird in the 

 autumn from the north, we infer that it breeds generally in 

 very high northern latitudes, although we are informed, as 

 before mentioned, that some breed also on the shores of the 

 Baltic and the coast of Denmark, where they choose a 

 swampy ground interspersed with grassy knolls on which 

 the slightly constructed nest is placed, and in which four eggs 

 are deposited, that are smaller and narrower than those of the 

 dunlin. The spots on those eggs are marked in a smaller 

 proportion, the ground colour is pale olive-green with chest- 

 nut-brown markings. 



The measurements of the Schintz Sandpiper are as follows : 

 — The entire length six and a half inches ; the beak measures 

 nearly an inch ; the wing, from the carpus to the tip, four 

 inches and a half; the tarsus eleven lines ; the middle toe 

 and claw ten lines. 



The specimen from which our plate was taken, being in 

 an intermediate state of plumage, pleasingly unites the fea- 

 thering of summer and winter, still bearing some of the rufous 



