136 
WADING BIRDS. 
LEAST SANDPIPER. 
PEEP. 
Tringa minutilla. 
Char. Upper parts mottled black, rufous, and dull white, darker on 
the rump; a light stripe over the eyes; under parts white, spotted with 
dusky; breast and sides washed with ashy brown; toes without web. 
The smallest of the Sandpipers. Length 5% to 6 inches. 
Nest. Usually on a dry hill bordering a lake or pond, but sometimes 
amid moss close by the sea-shore, — a slight depression, scantily lined 
with grass and leaves. 
E^^s. 4; buff or drab thickly marked with brown and lilac; 1.15 X 
0.85. 
This small and nearly resident species may be considered as 
the most common and abundant in America, inhabiting the 
shores and marshes of the whole continent both to the north 
and south of the equator, retiring probably with the incle- 
mency of the season, indifferently, from either frigid circle 
towards the warmer and more hospitable regions within the 
tropics. These birds are consequently seen, spring and 
autumn, in all the markets of the Union as well as in those 
of the West Indies, Vera Cruz, and in the interior as far as 
Mexico. Captain Cook also found them on the opposite side 
of the continent, frequenting the shores of Nootka Sound. 
The great mass of their pigmy host retire to breed within the 
desolate lands of the .Arctic circle, where, about the 20 th of 
May, or as soon as the snow begins to melt and the rigors of 
the long and nocturnal winter relax, they are again seen to 
return to the shores and the swampy borders of their native 
lakes in the inclement parallel of 66 degrees. Though shy and 
quailing on their first arrival, with many other aerial passen- 
gers of like habits, they contribute to give an air of life and 
activity to these most dreary, otherwise desolate and inhospi- 
table regions of the earth. Endowed with different wants and 
predilections from the preceding hosts, whose general livery 
they wear, they never seemingly diverge in their passage so 
far to the eastward as to visit Greenland and the contiguous 
