SPOTTED SANDPIPERS 
99 
animation to every shore in the continent from the 
Gulf to the Arctic Sea. They are at home by the 
great lakes and by the drying ponds and failing 
streams, also along the coasts, by mountain lakes, 
forest-bordered rivers, and the sloughs of the open 
prairie. They seem in fancy to have become imbued 
with the moving restlessness of the untiring attack 
of the water upon the land. When they fly in a short 
detour their quivering wings seem divided into four 
by long white marks across the feathers. Although 
they indulge in long night flights from the perpetual 
summer of the Isthmus, they locate freely from the 
Gulf to the northern limit of their range. Like all the 
feathered migrants, they have long known the sus- 
taining power of the evening and the night air, and 
human inventors with their awkward imitations have 
become equally wise. Night flights have given an air 
of mystery to bird migrations, but there has been a 
gradual revelation of their secrets. 
On the sandbar Spotted Sandpipers have nested 
with familiar confidence in spite of the city's 
aggression. A startled noisy dash, when fear over- 
comes the maternal instinct, reveals the cause of 
alarm and anxiety — a nest hollowed in the sand 
and carelessly lined with weeds and grasses. Four 
unnaturally large and dusky eggs, blotched with 
brown, lie snugly with their small ends together, the 
pride of the distressed mother, now running appeal- 
