THE PURRE. 
331 
THE PURRE TRINGA CINCLUS — Plate L VII. Fig. 3. 
Linn. Syst. 251. — Arct. Zool. p. 475. No. 390. — Bewick, ii. p. 115. — L’Alouette 
de mer, Buff. vii. 548. — Peale’s Museum, No. 4126. 
TRINGA ALP IN A. — Pennant. 
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 habits 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 
autumn, 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 
sea coasts of both Carolinas, 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, alter- 
nately 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 of their companions fall, the whole body 
often alight, or descend to the surface with them, till the 
sportsman is completely satiated with destruction. On some 
of those occasions, while crowds of these victims are fluttering 
