Januaky, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
27 
NOTES ON SHORE BIRDS 
By J. T. N. 
V — Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers 
were well guarded by their parents, how- 
ever. I saw one pair attack and bite the 
neck of a neighbor which had alighted 
on their particular crag. I noted again 
that the females were more unselfish and 
devoted than the males and seem entirely 
fearless. 
The females, which clung so tenaci- 
ously to the nests, their mandibles trem- 
bling as they watched me, were exqui- 
sitely gentle creatures. The males al- 
ways stood on the far side of their mates 
so as to avoid possible danger, but the 
brooding mothers allowed me to stroke 
their backs without moving. The color- 
ing of these birds was as rich as could 
be imagined- — glossy blue, violet, and me- 
tallic green on the upper surface; im- 
maculate white on throat and breast. A 
line of pure white feathers extended also 
along the inner border of the wing. The 
wart-like excrescences above the bill were 
of a deep chrome yellow, and, the iris 
was brown, surrounded first by a choco- 
late cornea and then by the cyanine blue 
of the lid. I offered a small dead fish 
to one brooder. It was accepted imme- 
diately, but was dropped again, doubt- 
less because it was stale. 
I T was many days before I once again 
visited the shag colony. All through 
the midsummer month of January, 
however, we saw the birds from the ship 
as they plunged from their rocks into 
the kelp for fish, or swam about among 
the areas of floe ice. When rising into 
flight, they kicked heavily along the sur- 
face for a considerable distance. They 
flew in string formation, a dozen or more 
together, and often spread their broad 
feet to serve as an adjunct to the tail, 
particularly when stopping headway. 
Their flight seemed to be more or less 
aimless, for they traveled in circles, as 
a rabbit runs. 
Finally, on February 16, I climbed the 
shag rock for the last time. The young- 
sters had begun to acquire greenish quills 
and white breasts, and were wandering 
away from the nests among the high tus- 
sock hummocks. They had a low, mel- 
low whistle which they repeated over and 
over, swelling out their throats. The 
breeding ledges were foul with decayed 
fish remains and excreta. The parents 
were rather less confident than when the 
young were more helpless, but the fe- 
males as usual showed less timidity than 
the males. 
In March, the end of summer, when 
we pointed our good ship’s prow north- 
ward toward warmer seas, many of the 
adult shags were still caressing and 
curtseying on their cliff-built homes. 
R. C. M. 
THE RING-NECKED SNAKE 
M r. HOWARD K. GREEN, of Brook- 
lyn, N. Y., was turning over rocks 
for bass bait at Greenwood Lake, 
N. Y., when he uncovered a snake that 
was new to him. “The unfamiliar creep- 
er,” he writes, “found coiled under a small 
flat stone, on high ground two hundred 
feet from a small stream, was ‘battleship- 
gray’ in color, less than a foot longj^ and 
S CARCELY larger than sparrows, ex- 
cept for their longer wings, these are 
the smallest of our shore-birds. They 
are also the most abundant and the 
least wary, and are often the constant com- 
panions of the gunner waiting in a blind 
for larger birds. At times they will come 
nicely to the decoys set out for larger birds, 
and at other times seem to pay no attention 
to them. The two species are difficult to 
separate in life and are known to baymen 
on Long Island indiscriminately as Oxeyes. 
The Semipalmate is a little the larger of 
the two, its colors paler, grayer, less brown. 
Perhaps the easiest way to tell the two 
apart in life is by the color of the legs. 
which vary from yellow to dull green in the 
Least, appearing darker and blackish in the 
Semipalmate. Though frequently found 
mixed together in the same flocks, when 
one learns to distinguish the two it is sur- 
prising to find how different their habits. 
Though some of their notes are similar, 
the common loud flight call of the Least, 
kreep, is quite different from that of the 
Semipalmate, chrruk. The Semipalmates 
are the stronger fliers, the flocks being 
more given to wheeling about in the air. 
They are also the more active on the 
ground, and scatter less when feeding. 
possessed a pretty orange-colored band 
across the back of the neck — just back of 
where head and body join.” 
This serpent was undoubtedly the Ring- 
necked Snake (Diadophis punctatus), a 
species distributed from southeastern Can- 
ada to Florida, and westward from the 
Atlantic seaboard to Michigan, Ohio, and 
Tennessee. It is by no means a rare snake, 
but is almost exclusively nocturnal in its 
habits, and is rarely seen unless it is acci- 
dentally unearthed. Its feeding habits are 
beneficial from an agricultural standpoint, 
and of course it is perfectly harmless and 
Both species feed on the marsh as well as 
on the flats (and occasionally on the beach) 
but the Semipalmates do not scatter 
through the grass so as to be flushed one 
at a time as the Least often do. Moving 
north in the spring, Semipalmates are often 
present in numbers a week or two after 
the Leasts have gone( that is, into June, 
and they do not return in the southward 
migration until a week or two later than 
the other species, or as late as the twen- 
tieth of July. Speaking in general for the 
vicinity of New York City, they outnumber 
the Leasts about two to one, and this is 
generally true on the fresh water meadows 
inland as well as coastwise. 
The Western Sandpiper, Pacific coast 
representative of the Semipalmate, is 
strangely enough not infrequently found 
associated in small numbers with its eastern 
relative, on the Atlantic coast. It may be 
recognized by its much longer bill, decided- 
ly exceeding the head in length. In 
southward migration the fresh-plumaged 
young of this species are whiter about the 
head than the eastern bird, and have, more- 
over, diagnostic brick-red or rusty tinges 
in the plumage ; but the more or less worn 
adults scarcely differ in color from the 
other species. 
inoffensive. Mr. Green’s specimen was 
probably a young one, although even the 
adults seldom exceeded two feet in length.* 
Considerable variation is shown by the 
ring-necked snake. Some of them are 
nearly black, and the ring is often buff or 
whitish instead of orange. In most Long 
Island examples, moreover, the ring is only 
one scale, or one scale and a half, in width, 
while specimens from New England usually 
have strongly marked rings three scales in 
width. 
Near New York this snake has frequent- 
ly been found in woods adjoining bogs. 
