SPOTTED SANDPIPER, OR TATLER. 
307 
also wont to alight more frequently on the rails and stakes of fences, or on 
walls. I have seen them on the tops of hay-stacks, where they seemed to 
be engaged in pursuing insects. On several occasions I have found their 
nests in orchards of both peach and apple trees, at a considerable distance 
from water, the use of which, indeed, they do not appear to require much 
during the progress of incubation, or the first weeks after hatching their 
young, when I have seen them rambling in search of food over large open 
fields of sweet potatoes and other vegetables, in the neighbourhood of some 
of our cities. 
While these birds are flying, in the love season, the points of their wings 
are considerably bent down, and they propel themselves by strong and 
decided beats, supporting themselves afterwards by slow tremulous motions 
of their pinions, to the distance of some yards, when they repeat the strong- 
beats, and thus continue until they realight, uttering all the while their 
well-known notes, so accurately described by my friend Nuttall. 
In the autumnal months, along the shores of La Belle Riviere, I have 
often with much delight watched the movements of these birds, when I have 
been surprised to see the pertinacity with which, after the first frosts, they 
would pursue their migration down the stream, for on attempting to make 
them fly the other way, they would rise, sometimes to the height of twenty 
yards, and flying over head or along the river, proceed downwards, 
although at any other time they would exhibit no such propensity. They 
run along the shores, and through shallow water, with great nimbleness ; 
and while courting, the male struts before the female, with depressed 
wings, spreading out his tail and trailing it along the ground, in the man- 
ner of the Migratory and Rufous Thrushes. 
The young become very fat in autumn, and afford delicious eating, for as 
they feed much on worms, aquatic insects, and small mollusca, their flesh 
seldom has a fishy taste. The male and female are alike, and almost equal 
in size. The young differ from the old until the approach of winter, when, 
with the exception of their being rather smaller, no difference can be per- 
ceived. 
This species occurs also in Europe, and a few individuals have been 
shot in England. 
Spotted Sandpiper, Tringa macularia, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. vii. p. 60 . 
Totanus macularius, Bonap. Syn., p. 325. 
Spotted Tatler or Peet-weet, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 162. 
Spotted Sandpiper, Totanus macularius , Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 81. 
Male, 8, 133. 
Breeds from Texas along the shores to Maine, the islands of the G ulf of 
