204 The Spotted Sandpiper 
their supposed enemy, and ‘hnake believe” to be wounded, so as to 
decoy him away from the young; and they are apt, in their solicitude, to 
alight in all sorts of places, even upon trees or bushes. 
A SPOTTED SANDPIPER SETTLING UPON HER EGGS 
Photographed by Herbert K . Job 
The usual food of most shore-birds is aquatic insects ; but the 
Spotted Sandpiper is also a bird of fields and pastures, and therefore 
its range of insect-food is wider than most of its tribe, and includes 
grasshoppers and locusts. Probably almost anything in the insect line is 
acceptable, and thus it is a most useful bird to farmers: indeed, our 
Food and shore-birds are not given credit enough for the good 
Service agriculture. The Killdeer, Upland 
Plover, and Spotted Sandpiper should be classed with 
the Meadowlark and Bobolink, and not be put in the game-bird class at all. 
The ruthless way that the shore-birds have been exterminated is 
trul}^ shameful. It is high time to give all the shore-birds protection, lest 
species after species, now seldom seen, go to a sad extinction. 
Classification and Distribution 
The spotted Sandpiper belongs to the Order Limicolcu and the Family 
Scolopacidcc — Snipes and Sandpipers. Its scientific name is Acfitis macularia. 
It ranges over the whole continent, and breeds from Alaska and the wilderness 
about Hudson Bay south to the borders of Mexico; and it winters from the Gulf 
States to southern Brazil. 
This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 
Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
