128 
WADING BIRDS. 
ing in form and appearance every instant while they perform 
their circuitous, waving, and whirling evolutions along the 
shores with great rapidity ; alternately bringing their dark and 
white plumage into view, they form a very grand and imposing 
spectacle of the sublime instinct and power of Nature. At 
such times, however, the keen gunner, without losing much 
time in empty contemplation, makes prodigious slaughter in 
the timid ranks of the Purres j while as the showers of their 
companions fall, the w’hole body often alight or descend to the 
surface with them, until the greedy sportsman becomes satiated 
with destruction. 
The Dunlins breed plentifully on the Arctic coasts of Amer- 
ica, nesting on the ground in the herbage, laying three or four 
very' large eggs of an oil-green, marked with irregular spots of 
liver-brown of different sizes and shades, confluent at the 
larger end. Mr. Pennant also received the eggs of this kind 
from Denmark, so that the range in which they breed, no less 
than that in which they migrate, is very extensive. 
This species, still abundant throughout the continent, and breed- 
ing in the Far North, is called “ Winter Snipe ” by the gunners of 
New Jersey' and southward ; but that name is given by the New 
Englanders to the Purple Sandpiper, which is not seen farther 
south. The names Ox-bird and Purre, given to the present spe- 
cies by Nuttall, were the names by which the summer and winter 
phases of the Dunlin were designated formerly by English writers. 
Note. —The European Dunlin {Tringa alpina) is smaller 
than the American race, and of a duller tint. It occurs in Green- 
land and breeds there, and an occasional example wanders to the 
shores of Hudson Bay. 
