THE TURTLE SANDTITEK. 
2.13 
double row of papilbe upon tlie palate. 1 afterwards shot two 
more of the same species similarly engaged. This certainly 
looks very much as if the papilla3, assisted by those at the base 
of the tongue, acted together as a kind of double rasp. 
The familiarity of these birds often enables one to approach 
within a few feet; sometimes in the dusk of the evening I 
have succeeded in creeping up so close that I might almost 
have touched them with the muzzle of the gun. At such times 
I have heard another very peculiar sound, nearly resembling the 
loud ticking of a watch. At first it seemed likely that it pro- 
ceeded from the bursting of a succession of air-bubbles as they 
ascended from the hidden inhabitant of one of the pools of water 
near at hand ; but afterwards hearing it when the bird was 
standing upon a piece of dry ground, some distance inland, my 
opinion was altered. 
The Purple Sandpiper is an excellent swimmer. In calm 
weather I have seen three or four, belonging to a larger party, 
swimming actively about the base of a rock upon which their 
companions were feeding. I never saw one dive except when 
wounded and closely pursued. Sometimes, when I have dis- 
turbed one on a calm day, it has taken wing, and has debberately 
alighted upon the water several yards from the shore. 
These birds seldom appear in Shetland in anything like a 
large flock, but are mostly found in parties of perhaps a dozen 
or thereabouts, usually by themselves, their habits differing 
from those of the other Sandpipers. They become less active 
at high-water, when their feeding places are covered ; and at 
that time they loiter about the rocks, waiting for the tide to 
fall, sometimes sitting upon the half-submerged fronds of the 
larger seaweeds. As they generally take the seaward side of the 
rocks, they are not to be seen from the shore while thus at 
rest. So little fear of man do they show, that occasionally it 
is difficult to alarm them ; provokingly so, now and then, when 
one wishes to obtain a specimen, and the bird, refusing to rise, 
stands quietly with its head upon one side, as though it were 
highly amused at such an amount of '' clucking ” and gesticula- 
