442 PECTORAL SANDPIPER. 
insects, mollusca, and other small animals, which they seek 
in soft ground by thrusting in their flexible bill, or among 
the rejectamenta of the sea. They run rapidly, and generally 
fly near the surface of the water in a straight line, and during 
the day, cnly short distances. heir flesh, though esculent, 
is by no means palatable, being too fishy: they grow amaz- 
ingly fat in autumn, though their fat is not firm, but very oily. 
They are caught, however, in Italy by spreading nets on their 
feeding-grounds, and in the United States great numbers are 
destroyed by the gun. 
Spread over all the globe, some of the species even, the 
sandpipers are very difficult to distinguish from one another, 
marked traits being few, and detailed descriptions applying 
mostly to individual specimens. The species have been 
wantonly multiplied by superficial observers, and too much 
reduced perhaps by scientific men. We must chiefly rely on 
the relative dimensions of the bill and the length of the tarsus 
in fixing them. In North America are found at least ten of 
the subgenus 7’rznga, most of which likewise inhabit Europe, 
that has eight: the pectoral sandpiper is the only one beside 
the 7. pusilla of those American registered in our synopsis 
that is not found in Europe. 
This new species, though it is quite as large, if not larger 
than the Zringa alpina, has a shorter bill; which is besides 
reddish at base, distinguishing it at once from all the species 
it could be confounded with, since each of them has the bill 
entirely black: the 7. maritima and T. platyrhynca have a 
similarly-coloured bill, but are otherwise too well marked to 
be mistaken ; the former by the restricted naked space of the 
tibia, and the latter by the depressed form of its bill. 
The pectoral sandpiper is eight and a half inches long, some 
females being nearly nine: the bill is little more than an inch 
long, compressed throughout, reddish yellow at base, the rest 
black, and with a few snipe-like punctures near the tip. The 
crown of the head is black, each feather margined with rufous : 
the orbits, a line over the eye, and the forehead narrowly are 
