336 
RED-BREASTED SANDPIPER. 
The common name of this species on our sea coast is the 
Gray-back, and among the gunners it is a particular favourite, 
being generally a plump, tender, and excellent bird for the 
table ; and, consequently, brings a good price in market. 
The Gray-backs do not breed on the shores of the middle 
states. Their first appearance is early in May. They remain 
a few weeks, and again disappear until October. They usually 
keep in small flocks, alight in a close body together on the 
sand flats, where they search for the small bivalve shells 
already described. On the approach of the sportsman, they 
frequently stand fixed and silent for some time ; do not appear 
to be easily alarmed, neither do they run about in the water 
as much as some others, or with the same rapidity, but appear 
more tranquil and deliberate. In the month of November, 
they retire to the south. 
This species is ten inches long, and twenty in extent ; the 
bill is black, and about an inch and a half long ; the chin, 
eyebrows, and whole breast, are a pale brownish orange 
colour ; crown, hindhead from the upper mandible backwards, 
and neck, dull white, streaked with black ; back, a pale slaty 
olive, the feathers tipt with white, barred and spotted with 
black and pale ferruginous; tail-coverts, white, elegantly 
barred with black; wings, plain dusky, black towards the 
extremity ; the greater coverts, tipt with white ; shafts of the 
primaries, white; tail, pale ashy olive, finely edged with 
white, the two middle feathers somewhat the longest ; belly 
and vent, white, the latter marked with small arrow heads of 
black ; legs and feet, black ; toes, bordered with a narrow 
membrane ; eye, small and black. 
In some specimens, both of males and females, the red on 
the breast was much paler, in others it descended as far as 
the thighs. Both sexes seemed nearly alike. 
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