SPOTTED SANDPIPER, OR TATLER. 307 



also wont to alight more frequently on the rails and stakes of fences, or on 

 walls. I have seen them on the tops of hay-stacks, where they seemed to be 

 engaged in pursuing insects. On several occasions I have found their nests 

 in orchards of both peach and apple trees, at a considerable distance from 

 water, the use of which, indeed, they do not appear to require much during 

 the progress of incubation, or the first weeks after hatching their young, 

 when I have seen them rambling in search of food over large open fields of 

 sweet potatoes and other vegetables, in the neighbourhood of some of our 

 cities. 



While these birds are flying, in the love-season, the points of their wings 

 are considerably bent down, and they propel themselves by strong and 

 decided beats, supporting themselves afterwards by slow tremulous motions 

 of their pinions, to the distance of some yards, when they repeat the strong 

 beats, and thus continue until they realight, uttering all the while their well- 

 known notes, so accurately described by my friend Nuttall. 



In the autumnal months, along the shores of La Belle Riviere, I have 

 often with much delight watched the movements of these birds, when I have 

 been surprised to see the pertinacity with which, after the first frosts, they 

 would pursue their migration down the stream, for on attempting to make 

 them fly the other way, they would rise, sometimes to the height of twenty 

 yards, and flying over head or along the river, proceed downwards, although 

 at any other time they would exhibit no such propensity. They run along 

 the shores, and through shallow water, with great nimbleness; and while 

 courting, the male struts before the female, with depressed wings, spreading 

 out his tail and trailing it along the ground, in the manner of the Migratory 

 and Rufous Thrushes. 



The young become very fat in autumn, and afford delicious eating, for as 

 they feed much on worms, aquatic insects, and small mollusca, their flesh 

 seldom has a fishy taste. The male and female are alike, and almost equal 

 in size. The young differ from the old until the approach of winter, when, 

 with the exception of their being rather smaller, no difference can be per- 

 ceived. 



This species occurs also in Europe, and a few individuals have been shot 

 in England. 



Spotted Sandpiper, Tringa macularia, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. vii. p. 60. 



Totands macularius, Bonap. Syn., p. 325. 



Spotted Tatler or Peet-weet, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 162. 



Spotted Sandpiper, Totanus macularius, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 81. 



Male, 8, 13|. 



Breeds from Texas along the shores to Maine, the islands of the Gulf of 



