June, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
307 
Photograph taken in January in an Adirondack forest. 
Deer-mouse run-ways in the snow, showing hole leading to its nest. 1V . _y 
level. This is the highest record attained 
by any North American mammal. 
The deer-mouse lives in constant peril 
of his life from a host of enemies. He 
is preyed upon by hawks, owls, blue jays, 
snakes, weasles, minks, foxes, bobcats, 
martens, fishers, skunks and other pred- 
atory foes. Even the bear persistently 
hunts mice, which explains that animal’s 
well-known habit of tearing down old 
stumps and digging under logs. 
While in camp last summer we suc- 
ceeded in catching a deer-mouse in a 
small box-trap baited with cracked corn. 
On approaching the trap we were sur- 
prised to find that the mouse was not at 
all alarmed. He seemed to regard us 
with mild curiosity rather than fear. 
We put him in a soap box covered with 
wire netting, and he soon became so tame 
that he would eat raspberries out of our 
hands. We kept him for some weeks in 
captivity, and he always seemed perfect- 
ly contented, spending the night gnaw- 
ing sticks, and sleeping most of the day 
in a small box full of cotton. 
When aroused from his slumbers he 
was always ready to entertain us with 
amusing • antics. He could run up and 
down the perpendicular sides of the box 
without the least effort, and also liked 
to hang head down by his hind feet from 
the wire netting. 
THE SPOTTED SANDPIPER 
OR TEETER 
A S this sandpiper walks along the 
strand turning first to one' side and 
then to the other to pick up some 
tit-bit, it keeps continually bobbing the 
hinder portion of its body up and down, 
whence its common and descriptive name 
of “teeter.” If pressed too closely, it 
will generally fly out low over the ' water 
with a diagnostic, alternately fluttering 
and scaling flight, calling “weet, weet,” 
and return to the • shore again in a wide 
circle. On alighting, it bobs its tail with 
great violence for a minute or two, also 
its head and neck; then gradually be- 
comes more quiet and resumes its ordi- 
nary occupations. 
Over most of the United States' this is 
the only sandpiper which remains 
through the summer to breed. It is com- 
mon, and not • at all confined to the 
neighborhood of the coast, being very 
generally distributed throughout all the 
fresh-waters of the interior, lake shores, 
mill ponds, brooks, etc., as well as being 
found along the ocean beach (nesting in 
the dunes behind it), and along the 
shores of the bays. It does not gather 
and migrate in flocks as do most of the 
other species, and although two or three 
are commonly seen together and have a 
very sociable and often noisy time of it, 
one seldom finds more than a dozen in 
one company, even after the nesting sea- 
son when they are most numerous. Es- 
pecially at this time one occasionally 
finds them on the ’marshes, but they are 
less of a marsh bird than any other, 
being more frequent even along some 
woodland stream, where they meet only 
the somewhat larger solitary sandpiper. 
I have never seen the spotted sandpiper 
travelling in company with others of its 
own size, but of different species, a hab- 
it general among shore-birds, although it 
is frequently seen feeding among such. 
Spotted sandpipers are able to pick up 
a good living in so many different kinds 
of places, that probably at no time of the 
year are they concentrated in large 
numbers at particular points. This may 
account for their not having developed 
flocking habits. 
I T is a generally recognized fact that 
birds express their emotions by ges- 
tures and actions as well as by voice. 
The shore-birds have fewer gestures than 
ordinary land birds like the robin and 
cat-bird, but certain ones are sufficiently 
common and well marked to immediately 
arouse interest. Several species have 
the habit of raising the wings over the 
back, stretching or fluttering them for 
an instant and then folding them down 
again. I have observed this habit in the 
solitary sandpiper, the greater and les- 
ser yellowlegs and the willet, that is, in 
all our species of the group known as 
tattlers, with which I am familiar, ex- 
cepting the teeter, whose bobbing tail 
perhaps furnishes sufficient outlet for its 
surplus energy. We may suppose the 
gesture to have been inherited from 
gull-like birds, thought to have been the 
shore-birds’ ancestors, which hold or 
flutter the wings above the back as they 
stop to pick some morsel from the sur- 
face of the water, at times without 
alighting, at times alighting for an in- 
stant only, the wings meanwhile in a 
Nest and eggs of the spotted sandpiper 
position to raise the bird in the air 
again. With shore-birds it hardly has 
this same significance, however, being 
rather an indication that the individual 
has definitely alighted than that it con- 
templates instant flight. We believe that 
here it serves as a signal and is fre- 
quently of use in displaying the bird’s 
recognition marks, which often find ex- 
pression in the pattern of the wing or 
the under-wing. Solitary ’ sandpipers 
and lesser yellowlegs have been observed 
to go through this gesture immediately 
before assuming a less conspicuous rest- 
ing or feeding attitude and we have no- 
ticed that with several lesser yellowlegs 
feeding in a pool it was used by an in- 
dividual after fluttering a short distance 
and alighting with a companion. 
A second very wide-spread gesture is 
that of bobbing or “hiccuping” the head 
and neck, characteristic of all the plov- 
ers, and found, so far as we know, 
throughout the tattler group, though 
we have not found it in any of the more 
specialized groups. It is expressive of 
restlessness or suspicion, and probably 
has its origin in raising the head at the 
instant of taking flight. It is much bet- 
ter marked in some species than in 
others, the greater yellowlegs, for in- 
stance, than the lesser. This bobbing 
or hiccuping increases in direct ratio to 
the bird’s nervousness or excitement. 
When quietly feeding or resting, indi- 
viduals do not, as a rule, indulge in it, 
though I have seen one standing drows- 
ing until almost asleep, resume wakeful- 
ness with a slight hiccup from time to 
time. When just alighted and looking 
suspiciously about, individuals almost 
always bob somewhat- and when alarmed 
by an intruder the bobbing is often much 
exaggerated. An instance of this was 
observed Nov. 3, 1919, at Mastic, Long 
Island; approaching a dead spot in the 
meadows at dawn my attention was 
caught by the flash, flash, flash of a 
greater yellowleg’s white breast, in the 
still somewhat dim light; the bird alight- 
ed there facing me. a regular heliograph. 
Although I attempted to approach cau- 
tiously it was already thoroughly 
(continued on page 341) 
