TRINGA CINCLUS* 
THE PURRE. 
[Plate EVIL— Fig. 3.] 
Linn. Syst. 251. — Jlrct. Zool. p.475,<JSro. 390. — Bewick, ii, p. 
115. — L’JHouette de mer. Buff, vii, 548. — Peale’s Museum, 
JVu. 4126. 
This is one of the most numerous of our Strand-birds, as 
they are usually called, that frequent the sandy beach, on the 
frontiers of the ocean. In its habit it differs so little from the 
preceding, that, except in being still more active and expert in 
running, and searching among the sand, on the reflux of the 
waves, as it nimbly darts about for food, what has been said of 
the former will apply equally to both, they being pretty constant 
associates on these occasions. 
The Purre continues longer with us both in spring and au- 
tumn than either of the two preceding; many of them remain 
during the very severest of the winter, though the greater part 
retire to the more genial regions of the south; where I have seen 
them at such seasons, particularly on the seacoasts of both Ca- 
rolinas, during the month of February, in great numbers. 
These birds, in conjunction with several others, sometimes 
collect together in such flocks, as to seem, at a distance, a large 
cloud of thick smoke, varying in form and appearance every 
instant, while it performs its evolutions in air. As this cloud 
descends, and courses along the shores of the ocean, with great 
rapidity, in a kind of waving serpentine flight, alternately 
throwing its dark and white plumage to the eye, it forms a very 
grand and interesting appearance. At such times the gunners 
make prodigious slaughter among them; while, as the showers 
* The preceding^ species in immature plumage. 
