SCOLOPACLDfE — THE SNIPE FAMILY — ACTODROMAS. 
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dusky, with paler edges ; other rectrices light brownish gray, with white shafts. Crown light 
grayish fulvous or ochraceous, heavily streaked with black ; wing-coverts brownish gray, with 
darker centres and paler edges, the shafts blackish ; tertials edged with ochraceous ; primaries 
dusky. A light superciliary stripe, and a darker one on side of the head ; neck and juguluni very 
pale grayish fulvous or fulvous-ashy streaked with dusky ; sides and crissum narrowly streaked ; 
other lower parts immaculate white. Adult in winter : Above, rather dark brownish gray, the 
feathers with indistinctly darker centres ; rump, etc., as in summer plumage. Superciliary stripe 
and lower parts white, the jugulum light ashy, indistinctly streaked. Young, first plumage : Very 
similar to the summer plumage of the adult, but many of the scapulars and interscapulars tipped 
with white, these feathers without any bars ; wing-coverts bordered with ochraceous. Jugulum 
suifusecl with pale fulvous, and obsoletely streaked. 1 
Total length, about 5.50 to 6.50 inches ; extent, 11.00 to 12.50 ; wing, about 3.50 to nearly 
4.00 ; culmen, about .75 to .92 ; tarsus, .75 ; middle toe, .60. Bill dull black ; iris dark brown; 
legs and toes dusky. 
This abundant and extensively diffused species resembles very closely, both in its small size 
and in its colors, at all seasons, the equally common and widely distributed Semipalmated Sand- 
piper, Ereunetes pusillus. It may be immediately distinguished, however, by the completely cleft 
toes, the other species having all the anterior toes webbed at the base. 
This common and familiar Sandpiper has an almost universal distribution through- 
out North America, and in the winter wanders in greater or less numbers into Mex- 
ico, Central America, and over a large portion of South America. It breeds as far 
south as Sable Island, and also in Newfoundland, in Labrador, in Alaska, and in the 
higher Arctic regions generally. A limited number winter in the Gulf States ; but 
in all the rest of North America this bird appears only in its migrations, passing 
slowly north in the spring, pausing on its way at every suitable feeding-place, and 
finally passing out of the United States about the last of May. Within four or five 
weeks of the final departure of the last stragglers of the movement northward, the 
advance of the returning host begins to reappear, moving southward. It can hardly 
be that those which thus early show themselves in New England — some of them 
early in July — and even in regions much farther south, can have attended to the 
duties of incubation. Their reappearance thus early can only be satisfactorily ex- 
plained by the supposition that both the southern and the northern movements are 
attended by a certain, but probably not a very large, proportion of un mated, imma- 
ture, or barren birds. These accompany their kindred in their journey north in the 
spring, linger behind in the rich feeding-places on their way, and being undetained 
1 Some young specimens, apparently of the same age and almost certainly the same species, in the 
collection differ very strikingly from the above description in the less amount or total absence of rufous 
above, the feathers having merely narrow ochraceous borders, and scarcely any white on the ends of the 
feathers ; the whole plumage being thus very much duller. 
