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KNOT OR ASH-COLOURED OR RED-BREASTED 
SANDPIPER. 
Tringa islandica, Linn. 
PLATE COOXXYIII. — Adult in Summer and Winter. 
The Knot, good reader, is a handsome and interesting species, whether in 
its spring or in its winter plumage, and, provided it be young and fat, is 
always welcome to the palate of the connoisseur in dainties. As to its 
habits, however, during the breeding season, I am sorry to inform you that 
I know nothing at all, for in Labrador, whither I went to examine them, I 
did not find a single individual. I have been informed that several students 
of nature have visited its breeding places ; but why they have given us no 
information on the subject, seeing that not only you and I, but many persons 
besides, would be glad to hear about it, is what we cannot account for. 
I do not wish you to infer from these remarks, that the persons alluded to 
are the only ones who have neglected to note down on the spot observations 
which might be interesting and useful. I myself am very conscious of my 
own remissness in this respect, and deeply regret the many opportunities of 
studying nature which have been in a manner lost to me, on account of a 
temporary supineness which has seized upon me, at the very moment when 
the objects of my pursuit were placed within my reach by that bountiful 
Being to whom we owe all our earthly enjoyments, and all our hopes of 
that future happiness which we strive to merit. 
I have traced the Knot along the shores of our Atlantic states, from Texas 
to the entrance of the Bay of Fundy, in the months of April and May, and 
again in the autumnal months. I have also found it in winter in East 
Florida, and therefore feel confident that some of the species do not proceed 
beyond our southern limits at that season. Whilst on the Bay of Galveston, 
in Texas, in April 1837, I daily observed groups of Knots arriving there, 
and proceeding eastward, meandering along the shores of the Gulf of 
Mexico. In the interior of the United States I never observed one, and for 
this reason I am inclined to think that the species moves northward along 
the coast. But as I did not find any in Nova Scotia, Labrador, or New- 
foundland, I consider it probable that those which betake themselves to the 
fur countries, turn off from our Atlantic shores when they have reached the 
