ASH-COLOURED SANDPIPER. 



333 



beach with great nirnbleness, wading and searching among 

 the loosened particles for its favourite food, which is a small 

 thin oval bivalve shell-fish, of a white or pearl colour, and not 

 larger than the seed of an apple. These usually lie at a short 

 depth below the surface ; but in some places are seen at low 

 water in heaps, like masses of wet grain, in quantities of more 

 than a bushel together. During the latter part of summer 

 and autumn, these minute shell-fish constitute the food of 

 almost all those busy flocks that run with such activity along 

 the sands, among the flowing and retreating waves. They are 

 universally swallowed whole ; but the action of the bird's 

 stomach, assisted by the shells themselves, soon reduces them 

 to a pulp. If we may judge from their effects, they must be 

 extremely nutritious, for almost all those tribes that feed on 

 them are at this season mere lumps of fat. Digging for these 

 in the hard sand would be a work of considerable labour, 

 whereas, when the particles are loosened by the flowing of the 

 sea, the birds collect them with great ease and dexterity. It 

 is amusing to observe with what adroitness they follow and 

 elude the tumbling surf, while at the same time they seem 

 wholly intent on collecting their food. 



The ash-coloured sandpiper, the subject of our present 

 account, inhabits both Europe and America. It has been 

 seen in great numbers on the Seal Islands near Chatteaux Bay ; 

 is said to continue the whole summer in Hudson's Bay, and 

 breeds there. Mr Pennant suspects that it also breeds in 

 Denmark ; and says, that they appear in vast flocks on the 

 Flintshire shore during the winter season.* With us they are 

 also migratory, being only seen in spring and autumn. They 



gleaming and cloudy, may have seen the masses of these birds at a dis- 

 tance, when the whole were only visible, appear like a dark and swiftly 

 moving cloud, suddenly vanish, but in a second appear at some dis- 

 tance, glowing with a silvery light almost too intense to gaze upon, 

 the consequences of the simultaneous motions of the flock, at once 

 changing their position, and showing the dark gray of their backs, or 

 the pure white of their under parts. — Ed. 

 * Arctic Zoology, p. 474. 



