THE PUREE. 335 



THE PUREE. (Tringa cinclus.) 



PLATE LVIL— Fig. 3. 



Linn. Syst. 251. — Arct. Zool. p. 475, 3STo. 390. — Bewick, ii. p. 115. — L'Alouette 

 de Mer, Buff. vii. 548.— Peale's Museum, No. 4126. 



TRINGA ALPIiVA.—Yexnakt. 



This is one of the most numerous of our strand birds, as they 

 are usually called, that frequent the sandy beach on the frontiers 

 of the ocean. In its habits it differs so little from the preced- 

 ing, that, except in being still more active and expert in run- 

 ning and searching among the sand on the reflux of the 

 waves, as it nimbly darts about for food, what has been said 

 of the former will apply equally to both, they being pretty 

 constant associates on these occasions. 



The purre continues longer with us, both in spring and 

 autumn, than either of the two preceding ; many of them 

 remain during the very severest of the winter, though the 

 greater part retire to the more genial regions of the south, 

 where I have seen them at such seasons, particularly on the 

 sea-coasts of both Carolinas, during the month of February, 

 in great numbers. 



These birds, in conjunction with several others, sometimes 

 collect together in such flocks, as to seem, at a distance, a 

 large cloud of thick smoke, varying in form and appearance 

 every instant, while it performs its evolutions in air. As this 

 cloud descends and courses along the shores of the ocean, with 

 great rapidity, in a kind of waving serpentine flight, alter- 

 nately throwing its dark and white plumage to the eye, it 

 forms a very grand and interesting appearance. At such 

 times the gunners make prodigious slaughter among them ; 

 while, as the showers of their companions fall, the whole body 

 often alight, or descend to the surface with them, till the 

 sportsman is completely satiated with destruction. On some 

 of those occasions, while crowds of these victims are fluttering 



