Lake Umbagog.
1896
September 15
(No 5)
I had the same feeling as I raised the gun to my
shoulder but at the report the bird started down
a long, slight decline finally striking in the middle
of the Carry near the Lake and sending the white spray
high into the air. It was perfectly dead when we
reached it and great was my surprise to find
that it was a Carolina Grebe doubtless the same
that I have seen almost daily near the Outlet for
the past two weeks. Poor bird! I would not have
shot it had I suspected what it was.
  Solitary Sandpipers were unusually numerous to-day
along the Megalloway. I must have seen more than
twenty in all, most of them on the muddy shores
of the river itself but one or two about each of the
small ponds that I visited in search of Ducks. They
are by no means invariably "solitary" for one often
finds two and occasionally three or four feeding or
flying in company. They do not, however, appear
to associate, unless by chance, with any of
the other species of waders. American Wood Sandpipers
they should have been called for they love these
forest pools & rivers and, when startled, frequently
fly directly back into the densest woods making
their way through the branches with quite as much
ease as does the Woodcock.
[margin]Totanus
solitarius[/margin]