SPOTTED SANDPIPER, OR TATLER. 305 



times of the day, coursing rapidly along the borders of our tide-water 

 streams, flying swiftly and rather low, in circular sweeps along the meanders 

 of the rock or river, and occasionally crossing from side to side, in rather a 

 sportive and cheerful mien, than as the needy foragers they appear at the 

 close of the autumn. While flying out in these wide circuits, agitated by 

 superior feelings to those of hunger and necessity, we hear the shores re- 

 echo the shrill and rapid whistle of 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, and usually 

 closing the note with something like a warble, as they approach their com- 

 panions on the strand. The cry then varies to 'peet, 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, 

 beginning high and gradually declining into a somewhat plaintive tone. As 

 the season advances, our little lively marine wanderers often trace the 

 streams some distance into the interior, resting usually in fresh meadows 

 among the grass, sometimes even near the house, and I have seen their eggs 

 laid in a strawberry-bed; and the young and old, pleased with their allowed 

 protection, familiarly fed, and probed the margin of the adjoining duck-pond, 

 for their usual fare of worms and insects. They have the very frequent 

 habit of balancing or wagging the tail, in which even the young join as soon 

 as they are fledged. From the middle to the close of May, the pairs, 

 seceding from their companions, seek out a place for their nest, which is 

 always in a dry open field of grass or grain, sometimes in the seclusion and 

 shade of a field of maize, but most commonly in a dry pasture, contiguous 

 to the sea-shore; and in some of the solitary and small sea islands, several 

 pairs sometimes nestle near to each other, in the immediate vicinity of the 

 noisy nurseries of the quailing Terns. On being flushed from her eggs, the 

 female goes off without uttering any complaint; but when surprised with her 

 young, she practises all the arts of dissimulation common to many other 

 birds, fluttering in the path, as if badly wounded, and generally proceeds in 

 this way so far as to deceive a dog, and cause it to overlook the brood, for 

 whose protection these instinctive arts are practised; nor are the young 

 without their artful instinct, for on hearing the reiterated cries of their 

 parents, they scatter about, and squatting still in the withered grass, almost 

 exactly their colour, it is with careful search very difficult, to discover them, 

 so that in nine times out of ten, they would be overlooked, and only be 

 endangered by the tread, which they would endure sooner than betray their 

 cautious retreat. 



"At a later period the shores and marshes resound with the quick, clear, 

 and oft-repeated note of peet weet, peet weet, followed up by a plaintive call 

 on the young, of peet, peet, peet? peet? If this is not answered by the 

 scattered brood, a reiterated 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, 'wait, 'wait, is heard, the 

 voice dropping on the final syllables. The whole marsh and the shores at 

 times echo to this loud, lively, and solicitous call of the affectionate parents 



