ASH-COLOURED SANDPIPER, 
.329 
beach with great nimbleness, wading and searching among 
the loosened particles for its favourite food, which is a small 
thin oval bivalve shell-fish, of a white or pearl colour, and not 
larger than the seed of an apple. These usually lie at a short 
depth below the surface ; but in some places are seen at low 
water in heaps, like masses of wet grain, in quantities of more 
than a bushel together. During the latter part of summer and 
autumn, these minute shell-fish constitute the food of almost 
all those busy flocks that run with such activity along the 
sands, among the flowing and retreating waves. They are 
universally swallowed whole ; but the action of the bird’s 
stomach, assisted by the shells themselves, soon reduces them 
to a pulp. If we may judge from their effects, they must be 
extremely nutritious, for almost all those tribes that feed on 
them are at this season mere lumps of fat. Digging for these 
in the hard sand would be a work of considerable labour, 
whereas, when the particles are loosened by the flowing of the 
sea, the birds collect them with great ease and dexterity. 
It is amusing to observe with what adroitness they follow 
and elude the tumbling surf, while at the same time they 
seem wholly intent on collecting their food. 
The Ash-coloured Sandpiper, the subject of our present 
account, inhabits both Europe and America. It has been 
seen in great numbers on the Seal Islands, near Chatteaux 
Bay ; is said to continue the whole summer in Hudson’s Bay, 
and breeds there. Mr Pennant suspects that it also breeds in 
Denmark ; and says, that they appear in vast flocks on the 
Flintshire shore during the winter season.* With us they are 
also migratory, being only seen in spring and autumn. They 
of these birds at a distance, when the whole were only visible, appear like a 
dark and swiftly moving cloud, suddenly vanish, but in a second appear at 
some distance, glowing with a silvery light, almost too intense to gaze upon, 
the consequences of the simultaneous motions of the flock, at once changing 
their position, and shewing the dark gray of their backs, or the pure white of 
their under parts — E d. 
* Arctic Zoology, p. 474. 
