SPECIES 3. TRINGA MACULARM. 
SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 
[Plate LIX. — Fig. 1.] 
Arct. Zool. f. 473, Mo. 385. — Let Grive ePeau, Buff, viii , 140. — 
Edw. 277. — Peaub's Museum, Mo. 4056.* 
This very common species arrives in Pennsylvania about 
the twentieth of April, making its first appearance along the 
shores of our large rivers, and, as the season advances, tracing 
the courses of our creeks and streams towards the interior. 
Along the rivers Schuylkill and Delaware, and their tributary 
waters, they are in great abundance during the summer. This 
species is as remarkable for perpetually wagging the tail, as 
some others are for nodding the head; for whether running on 
the ground, or on the fences, along the rails, or in the water, 
this motion seems continual; even the young, as soon as they 
are freed from the shell, run about constantly wagging the tail. 
About the middle of May they resort to the adjoining corn fields 
to breed, where I have frequently found and examined their 
nests. One of these, now before me, and which was built at 
the root of a hill of Indian corn, on high ground, is composed 
wholly of short pieces of dry straw. The eggs are four, of a 
pale clay or cream colour, marked with large irregular spots of 
black, and more thinly with others of a paler tint. They are large 
in proportion to the size of the bird, measuring an inch and a 
quarter in length, very thick at the great end, and tapering sud- 
denly to the other. The young run about with wonderful speed 
as soon as they leave the shell, and are then covered with down 
* Tringa Tnncukno, Gmel. SysJ. i,j>. 672, JV'o. 7. — Lath. Jnd. Orn.p.7S4, M>. 
29, — Totanus macular ius, Temm. Man. tVOrn.p. 656. 
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