283 SEA-SIDE ORNITHOLOGY. 
more common than in the least frequented portions of Cape 
Cod. Although living in pairs, they are also a very social 
bird, and where undisturbed, several pairs usually select the 
same locality and live in friendly companionship, uniting 
in the fall with their young, in small flocks of twenty or 
thirty. They are found exclusively on sandy shores and low 
islands, and are never met with inland. They nest directly 
on the sand, relying directly upon their resemblance to it in 
the color of their plumage for their own safety and that of 
their eggs. Their young can run with remarkable celerity 
the moment they appear. -At the approach of danger, or 
at the sound of an alarm-note from their parent, they will 
squat, in the most amusing manner, upon the sand, as still 
and motionless as so many little gray pebbles, and will almost 
suffer you to tread upon them before they will move. In the 
meanwhile the mother bird will be resorting to every imagi- 
nable form of lameness, or pretence of wounded disability, 
to draw you away from her young fledglings. 
The common Spotted Sandpiper, though. equally abaid 
throughout the interior, and found wode there is any 
lowland, must also be mentioned as among our sea-side spe- 
cies. In many of its habits it strongly resembles our com- 
mon plover, differing chiefly in its peculiar flight, the tilting 
motions of its tail and body, and its sonorous outcries of 
peet-weet, peet-weet. 
The Turnstone is, with us, only a rare and occasional visi- 
tant, coming in semiannual migrations, but never giving us 
more than a transient visit. The Oyster-catcher, a Southern 
coast-bird and belonging chiefly to the regions south of Cape 
May, occasionally wanders as far north as Marshfield, and is 
entitled to this passing mention as one of the very remark- 
able forms, which, though very rare, are a very striking 
feature when present in the seaboard ornithology. 
We pass, with mere mention, the Woodcock, the Upland 
; Plover, and the Solitary Tattler, as properly upland and 
inland Mirac atis the whole family of Fs bias or Sand- 



