SANDERLING SANDPIPER. 287 



moderate length, measuring 9-| inches, its average diameter 1^ twelfths. 

 The coeca 1^ inches long, their greatest diameter f of a twelfth. 



The trachea is 1 T S 2 inches long, flattened, unossified, 1^ twelfths in diameter 

 at the top, diminishing to 1 twelfth; the number of rings about 105. 

 Bronchial half-rings 15. 



SANDERLING SANDPIPER. 



Y-Tringa arenaria, Bonap. 

 PLATE CCCXXXVIIL— Male and Female. 



Although the Sanderling extends its rambles along our Atlantic shores, 

 from the eastern extremities of Maine to the southernmost Keys of the 

 Floridas, it is only an autumnal and winter visiter. It arrives in the more 

 Eastern Districts about the 1st of August, on the sea-shores of New York 

 and New Jersey rarely before the 10th of August, and seldom reaches the 

 extensive sand-banks of East Florida previous to the month of November. 

 Along the whole of this extended coast, it is more or less abundant, some- 

 times appearing in bands composed of a few individuals, and at times in 

 large flocks, but generally mingling with other species of small shore-birds. 

 Thus I have seen Turnstones and Knots mixed with the Sanderlings, but in 

 such cases they are perhaps wanderers, which have not succeeded in meeting 

 with companions of their own species, that associate with the birds of which 

 I here speak. 



The Sanderling obtains its food principally by probing the moist sands of 

 the sea-shores with its bill held in an oblique position. At every step it 

 inserts this instrument with surprising quickness, to a greater or less depth, 

 according to the softness of the sand, sometimes introducing it a quarter of 

 an inch, sometimes to the base. The holes thus made may be seen on the 

 borders of beaches, when the tide is fast receding, in rows of twenty, thirty, 

 or more; in certain spots less numerous; for it appears that when a place 

 proves unproductive of the food for which they are searching, they very 

 soon take to their wings and remove to another, now and then in so hurried 

 a manner that one might suppose they had been suddenly frightened. The 

 contents of the stomach of those which I shot while thus occupied, were 



