ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 
43 
only a short distance. This note, which is possessed by both sexes, 
is nearly always made while the birds are in the air, and its pro- 
duction requires apparently considerable effort ; the head and neck 
being inclined downward, and then suddenly raised as the note is 
uttered, the flight being at the same time momentarily checked. 
The movements of the birds usually render it an easy matter to 
decide whether or not they have nests in the immediate vicinity. 
After the first alarm, those having nests at a distance disperse, 
while the others take their course in the form of an ellipse, some- 
times several hundred yards in length, with the object of their 
suspicion in the centre \ and, with long strokes of their wings, 
much like the flight of a Killdeer, they move back and forth. As 
their nests are approached the length of their flight is gradually 
lessened, until at last they are joined by the males, when the whole 
party hover low over the intruder’s head, uttering their peculiar 
note of alarm. At this time they have an ingenious mode of mis- 
leading the novice, by flying off to a short distance and hovering 
anxiously over a particular spot in the marsh, as though there were 
concealed the objects of their solicitation. Should they be fol- 
lowed, however, and a search be there made, the manoeuvre is re- 
peated in another place still farther from the real location of the 
nest. But should this ruse prove unavailing, they return and 
seem to become fairly desperate, flying about one’s head almost 
within reach, manifesting great distress. If possible, still greater 
agitation is shown when they have unfledged young, — they even 
betraying their charge into the hands of the enemy by their too 
obvious solicitude, they then hovering directly over the young, and 
uttering their notes of distress. The young have a fine, wiry peep, 
inaudible beyond a few feet. They are very pretty little creatures, 
covered with yellowish-buff*-colored down, with black spots on the 
upper surface of the body. Even when first hatched they are quite 
lively and difficult to capture. 
About the middle of July the females suddenly disappear, and a 
little later the males and the young also leave, with the exception 
of a few stragglers, which occasionally remain until the last of 
August. The main portion rarely remain as late as the 10th, 
and are usually gone by the 5th. The males commence their fall 
moult before they leave; but I have never taken a specimen in 
which the winter plumage was very evident. 
