SPOTTED SANDPIPER, OR TATLER. 
305 
times of the day, coursing rapidly along the borders of our tide-water 
streams, flying swiftly and rather low, in circular sweeps along the meanders 
of the rock or river, and occasionally crossing from side to side, in rather 
a sportive and cheerful mien, than as the needy foragers they appear at the 
close of the autumn. While flying out in these wide circuits, agitated by 
superior feelings to those of hunger and necessity, we hear the shores re- 
echo the shrill and rapid whistle of ’weet, \veet, ’weet, ’weet, and usually 
closing the note with something like a warble, as they approach their com- 
panions on the strand. The cry then varies to ’peet, ’weet, ’weet, ’weet, 
beginning high and gradually declining into a somewhat plaintive tone. 
As the season advances, our little lively marine wanderei’s often trace the 
streams some distance into the interior, resting usually in fresh meadows 
among the grass, sometimes even near the house, and I have seen their eggs 
laid in a strawberry bed ; and the young and old, pleased with their allowed 
protection, familiarly fed, and probed the margin of the adjoining duck-pond, 
for their usual fare of worms and insects. They have the very frequent 
habit of balancing or wmgging the tail, in which even the young join as soon 
as they are fledged. From the middle to the close of May, the pairs, 
seceding from their companions, seek out a place for their nest, which is 
always in a dry open field of grass or grain, sometimes in the seclusion and 
shade of a field of maize, but most commonly in a dry pasture, contiguous 
to the sea-sliore ; and in some of the solitary and small sea islands, several 
pairs sometimes nestle near to each other, in the immediate vicinity of the 
noisy nurseries of the quailing Terns. On being flushed from her eggs, the 
female goes off without uttering any complaint ; but when surprised with her 
young, she practises all the arts of dissimulation common to many other 
birds, fluttering in the path, as if badly wounded, and generally proceeds in 
this way so far as to deceive a dog, and cause it to overlook the brood, for 
whose protection these instinctive arts are practised ; nor are the young 
-without their artful instinct, for on hearing the reiterated cries of their 
parents, they scatter about, and squatting still in the withered grass, almost 
exactly their colour, it is with careful search very difficult to discover them, 
so that in nine times out of ten, they would be overlooked, and only be 
endangered by the tread, which they would endure sooner than betray their 
cautious retreat. 
“ At a later period the shores and marshes resound with the quick, clear, 
and oft-repeated note of peet weet, peet weet, followed up by a plaintive call 
on the young, of peet, peet, peet? peet? If this is not answered by the 
scattered brood, a reiterated ’weet, ’weet, ’weet, ’wait, ’wait, b heard, the 
voice dropping on the final syllables. The whole marsh and the shores at 
times echo to this loud, lively, and solicitous call of the affectionate parents 
