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THE YELLOWSHANK TATLER. 



•tTotanus flavipes, Lath. 

 PLATE CCCXLIV.— Male. 



The Yellowshank is much more abundant in the interior, or to the west- 

 ward of the Alleghany Mountains than along our Atlantic coast, although it 

 is also met with in the whole extent of the latter, from Florida to Maine. 

 It exceeds the Tell-tale Godwit in numbers on the shores of the Ohio, as 

 well as on the margins of the numerous ponds and lakes in the vicinity of the 

 Mississippi, from the mouth of the river just mentioned to New Orleans, and 

 beyond that city southward. In early autumn, when the sand-bars of the 

 Ohio are left uncovered, these active birds are seen upon them in small 

 flocks, formed each apparently of a single family, busily employed in search- 

 ing for food, and wading in the water up to the feathered part of their legs. 

 When the water is high, they resort to ponds and damp meadows intersected 

 by small rivulets. In the Carolinas and the Floridas they are pretty nume- 

 rous, in the former betaking themselves to the rice-fields, and in the latter to 

 the wet savannahs. They are equally fond of frequenting the shores of our 

 estuaries that are bordered by salt marshes, on the muddy edges of which 

 they find their food. I have also met with them on the margins of clear 

 streams in the interior of the States, and indeed should hardly be able to 

 mention a district in which the species is not to be seen, from the beginning 

 of September until May, when the greater number retire northward, although 

 some remain and breed, even in our Middle States, as Nuttall says they 

 are seen in the neighbourhood of Boston in the middle of June. I found a 

 few on the coast of Labrador, but did not succeed in discovering their nests, 

 which was the more surprising as these birds, according to my friend Tho- 

 mas MacCulloch, breed in considerable numbers about Pictou. He de- 

 scribes the nest as placed among the grass on the edges of the rivers and 

 large ponds of the interior. 



The flight of the Yellowshank is very similar to that of the Tell-tale God- 

 wit. They generally run to some distance before they take to wing, stop as 

 if to discover your intention, vibrate their body backwards and forwards, 

 intimate by their cries the knowledge they have of the nature of the weapon 

 you carry, and, as if convinced that you are bent on mischief, spring up, rise 

 obliquely to some height, emit louder notes, and with continued flappings 



