LEAST SANDPIPER 
AND 
SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER 
By HERBERT K. JOB 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 52 
These two dainty little Sandpipers, smallest of their tribe, may well 
be considered our representative shore-birds. The flocking of restless 
bands of nimble sprites along the sea-coast and the larger inland bodies 
of water is one of the most attractive sights in nature. Such a species 
as the Spotted Sandpiper, though commonly seen running along streams 
during its summer stay, does not gather in large and compact flocks ; so 
that it is rather through the Least and the Semipalmated Sandpipers 
that the majority of persons who see shore-birds at all become familiar 
with the pretty company that races along and across the beach, chased 
A LEAST SANDPIPER JUST HATCHED 
Photographed in the Magdalen Islands by Herbert K. Job 
by the waves, and with their masterly flight. The larger shore-birds, 
alas ! have been pretty well shot off, and in most parts of the country 
are found, if at all, in small numbers, only in favorable spots, and by the 
initiated. These tiny species that we are now considering remain the 
commonest of their family, because the least attractive to gunners. 
They are too small for food purposes, and no one deserving of the 
name of sportsman will, in these days, fire at their diminished ranks. 
Nevertheless, they are in nothing like their former abundance. Instead 
of the flocks of hundreds with which I was formerly familiar, two dozen 
now is a large flock in many places, and rarely enough at that. 
205 
