July, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
305 
able as a feeding ground. Every few 
years an exceptionally severe winter, 
perhaps, will kill the marsh grass, leav- 
ing patches dead and brown when the 
surrounding area grows tall and green 
in the ensuing summer. Gradually the 
old stubble on such dead spots breaks 
down and in wet times a pool of shal- 
low water is formed unhampered by 
grass. Such spots (which will last for 
several years till gradually invaded 
again by living grass) are the favor- 
ite feeding grounds of the lesser yel- 
low-leg and many other birds in mi- 
part of a grassy field: if it chance to 
be in their migration season, several 
species of shore-birds will sometimes 
appear in a region where under ordi- 
nary circumstances none save the little 
spotted sandpiper are ever seen. 
Heavy rains cause puddles in the 
wheel ruts of a wood road, and one 
finds boring made by the woodcock’s 
long bill at their edges. I once had oc- 
casion to deepen a pool in a brook for 
the children to bathe in. Mud and silt 
dug from its bottom made low project- 
ing mounds on either side, and it was 
of time. Due to gradual movement of 
the earth’s crust, the submerged edge 
of a continent rises above the sea. The 
bottom slopes off so gradually that 
storm waves rushing shoreward under 
the whip of the wind drag and shorten, 
loosing velocity and power, finally 
pitching forward far out, and the ac- 
tual shore is lapped by impotent brok- 
en foam. Before it can successfully 
attack the coast, the sea must have 
deep water close under the shore, and 
it obtains this by pushing inland long 
ridges of sand raised from the bottom. 
Meanwhile these ridges form beaches 
enclosing quiet bays and sounds, whose 
channels scoured by the tide, lead to 
inlets surrounded by the shore-birds’ 
favorite sand pits and bars. Between 
the channels in the bays, mud is de- 
posited at high tide to form flats as 
the water recedes, and marshes come 
into being. 
gration. The marsh has been dry and 
sun-baked for days, perhaps for weeks. 
An occasional bird flies over it but 
does not alight. Then it is flooded 
again and almost immediately they are 
feeding in such pools in flocks. If it 
remains wet they gradually decrease 
in numbers. Apparently the first water 
on dry ground is most attractive to 
them. Likely it washes out numerous 
insects within their reach and wakes 
the other small creatures of the marsh 
on which they feed, to a short period 
of special activity. The actual amount 
of water apparently is not an essential 
factor. Sometimes the yellowlegs are 
barely wetting their feet in the low 
places or, again, wading in water to 
their thighs, with apparently equal 
contentment. But, however, small or 
great the initial depth of water, when 
it begins to dry up rapidly the flocks, 
are usually off to some other ground, 
leaving only stragglers behind. Of 
course, there are limits to the amount 
of water a given species can put up 
with. It may be too deep for any of 
them. It may be so deep that the 
larger birds only can alight and feed, 
and the little oxeyes go elsewhere. But, 
generally speaking, what suits one 
suits the other and when present in 
numbers there is a profusion of species 
of all sizes. The stray Wilson’s phala- 
rope, which visits our Atlantic coast, 
frequently associates with flocks of the 
lesser yellowleg and I have seen one 
alight with a flock of these and swim 
like a miniature duck in the water be- 
tween the stubble where the yellow- 
legs were walking about. 
New water and new earth are equal- 
ly attractive. When the water is 
drained out of a mill-pond exposing its 
muddy bottom which has lain long con- 
cealed, or abnormal rains flood the low 
not long before these were marked 
with woodcock borings. It seems un- 
likely that anything of particular food 
value was obtained from them, but 
they were new ground claimed from 
the water, and as such to be investi- 
gated. 
To follow water-courses and coast- 
lines, to wet their feet occasionally, is 
a habit which seems common to every 
species in this group of birds. Some, 
it is true, live on dry plains or rolling 
country inland, catching grasshoppers 
and the like. We suspect even such 
birds of occasional ceremonial visits to 
the water which gathers in slight de- 
pressions of the plain or hollows be- 
tween the hills. Certainly the kildeer, 
a good deal of an upland bird, visits 
ponds and sloughs, and even the coast- 
wise marshes at times. The favorite 
haunts of shore-birds are dependent on 
fluctuations in the lands extending 
over very long, almost geologic periods 
IV 
Though there are favorite grounds 
where many diverse species gather, 
and though there is a certain free- 
masonry running through the group 
and one may find like and unlike, 
large and small travelling in the same 
flock, no two species of shore-birds 
are identical in their tastes or in their 
habits. As a result, in the early days 
before persecution had reduced their 
numbers, some kind was probably 
found almost everywhere. Now they 
are plentiful only in the best localities 
or close to some thoroughfare of mi- 
gration, where a diversity of species 
occur. When one does find some par- 
ticular kind away from the beaten 
track it is interesting to consider the 
reasons for its presence. This is a 
subject allied to the new and vaguely 
defined science we call Ecology. 
Whereas the south or ocean shore of 
Long Island, with its bays, marshes 
and beach-line is a favorite locality 
during the period of southward migra- 
tion, few species are at all common on 
the north shore, fac'ng Long Island 
Sound. Marshes along this c^ast are 
small in area, flats exposed by the fall- 
ing tide generally at the heads of long 
harbors, isolated by headlands which 
extend far out to the north. When the 
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