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The Spotted Sandpiper 
Our little friend is readily recognized. As it runs along the ground, 
or by the margin of a pool or stream, you know it is a sandpiper from its 
characteristic gait. All sandpipers are clad in grays and browns above, 
and in white below ; but the Spotted Sandpiper, in adult plumage, has 
conspicuous streaks and spots sprinkled over the white plumage of the 
underparts. The young bird of the first summer and fall, however, is 
only indefinitely gray on the breast and sides. It is almost never at 
rest, for it has contracted a nervous habit of tilting its body incessantly. 
Standing on the shore, it bows, bobs, jerks, tilts its body, yes, “teeters,” 
we may call it. When it flies, too, it proclaims its 
Flight*” identity. The wings are held below the level of the 
back with the tips well down, and are given a tremu- 
lous, hovering motion, accompanied by loud cries of peet-weet, peet-weet. 
These traits have given this bird the names by which it is better 
known than by its book-name, such as Teeter, Tip-up, Peet-weet, and so 
on. I dislike, however, to record local names of birds, and thus help to 
perpetuate them and the confusion they cause, for it would be much better 
if every one of our birds was known by one generally accepted name. 
The Spotted Sandpiper does not ask for the spacious lakes or broad 
streams that many of its tribe require. The merest puddle or rill will 
satisfy this species, and often we may run across it even in a dry pasture 
or on a piece of ploughed land. Just a little wetness of low ground may 
recommend a place as suitable for a summer home. Yet the bird is 
far from averse to more water. One is almost sure to find it running 
along the margin of a pond, lake, or river ; and the ocean-beach, particu- 
larly when rocky, is attractive to it. In such places, when the nesting- 
season is over, and the young are able to take care of themselves, we 
may meet these Sandpipers in family parties, or in small flocks, not in 
compact bodies, like various other sandpipers, but scattered; and single 
ones are sometimes found associated with flocks of other species. When 
alarmed, the scattered company springs suddenly 
from the shore, circles out over the water, with rever- 
berating peet-zveet cries, and returns to a spot not 
very far from the starting point. 
On the small inland waters there is but one species with which this 
could readily be confused. This is the Solitary Sandpiper, a bird not at 
all plentiful, which appears, usually singly or in pairs, as a migrant in 
May, and again in August and September. A careful observer readily 
may learn to distinguish theiP. Once I had a fine opportunity to see both 
species together and note the differences. It was late in July, on Lake 
Chautauqua, New York, on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution. 
The bird-study class was out before breakfast, and was delighted to see 
a flock of shore-birds resting on a sand-flat, among them Spotted Sand- 
pipers and several Solitary Sandpipers. Behind some large trees we made 
a close approach, and could see distinctly that the Solitary Sandpipers 
were a trifle larger than the Spotted Sandpipers, were darker on the back, 
Family 
Parties 
