WADING BIRDS. 
SO 
tation and perpetually bleached by the access of tides and 
storms ; in such situations they are often seen in numerous 
flocks running along the strand, busily employed in front of 
the moving waves, gleaning with agility the shrimps, minute 
shell-fish, marine insects, and small moluscous animals which 
ever-recurring accident throws in their way. The numerous 
flocks keep a low circling course along the strand, at times 
uttering a slender and rather plaintive whistle nearly like that 
of the smaller Sandpipers. On alighting, the little active troop, 
waiting the opportunity, scatter themselves about in the rear of 
the retiring surge. The succeeding wave then again urges the 
busy gleaners before it, when they appear like a little pigmy 
army passing through their military evolutions; and at this 
time the wily sportsman, seizing his opportunity, spreads 
destruction among their timid ranks; and so little are they 
aware of the nature of the attack that after making a few aerial 
meanders the survivors pursue their busy avocations with as 
little apparent concern as at the first. The breeding-place 
of the Sanderlings, in common with many other wading and 
aquatic birds, is in the remote and desolate regions of the 
North, since they appear to be obliged to quit those countries 
in America a little after the middle of August. According to 
Mr. Hutchins, they breed on the coast of Hudson Bay as low 
as the 5sth parallel ; and he remarks that they construct, in the 
marshes, a rude nest of grass, laying four dusky eggs, spotted 
with black, on which they begin to sit about the middle of 
June. 
Flemming supposes that those seen in Great Britain breed 
no farther off than in the bleak Highlands of Scotland, and 
Mr. Simmonds observed them at the Mull of Cantyre as late as 
the second of June. They are found in the course of the 
season throughout the whole Arctic circle, extending their 
migrations also into moderate climates in the winter. They 
do not, however, in Europe proceed as far south as the capital 
of Italy, as we learn from the careful and assiduous observa- 
tions of the Prince of Musignano. According to Latham the 
Sanderling is known to be an inhabitant even of the remote 
