ASH-COLORED SANDPIPER. 



37 



The Ash-colored Sandpiper, the subject of our present ac- 

 count, inhabits both Europe and America. It has been seen in 

 great numbers on the Seal islands near Chatteux 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 shores during the 

 winter season. With us they are also migratory, being only seen 

 in spring and autumn. They are plump birds; and by those ac- 

 customed to the sedgy taste of this tribe, are esteemed excellent 

 eating. 



The length of this species is ten inches, extent twenty; bill 

 black, straight, fluted to nearly its tip, and about an inch and a 

 half long; upper parts brownish ash, each feather marked near 

 the tip with a narrow semicircle of dark brown, bounded by ano- 

 ther of white ; tail coverts white, marbled with olive ; wing quills 

 dusky, shafts white; greater coverts black, tipt with white; some 

 of the primaries edged also with white; tail plain pale ash, finely 

 edged and tipt with white; crown and hind head streaked with 

 black, ash and white ; stripe over the eye, cheeks and chin white, 

 the former marked with pale streaks of dusky, the latter pure; 

 breast white, thinly specked with blackish; belly and vent pure 

 white; legs a dirty yellowish clay color; toes bordered with a 

 narrow thick warty membrane; hind toe directed inwards as in 

 the Turn-stone; claws and eye black. 



These birds vary a little in color, some being considerably 

 darker above, others entirely white below ; but, in all, the con- 

 centric semicircles on the back, scapulars, and wing coverts are 

 conspicuous. 



I think it probable that these birds become much lighter co- 

 lored during the summer, from the circumstance of having shot 

 one late in the month of June, at Cape May, which was of a pale 



* Arct. ZooL p. 474. 

 VOL. VII, K 



