64 
SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 
Tomjvus MJicuLjmius. 
[Plate LIX.— Fig. 1.] 
ArcU Zool. p, 473, JVb. 385.— Za Grive d^eau^ Buff. VIII, 140.— Edw. 277 . — Tringa macu- 
laria^ Lath. Ind. Orn. p, 734, No, 29.™ Temm. Man* d'’Om* p, 656. — Peale’s Museum^ 
No* 4056. 
THIS very common species arrives in Pennsylvania about 
the twentieth of April, making its first appearance along the shores 
of our large rivers, and, as the season advances, tracing the courses 
of our creeks and streams towards the inteidor. Along the rivers 
Schuylkill and Delaware, and their tributary waters, they are in 
great abundance during the summer. This species is as remark- 
able for perpetually wagging the tail, as some others are for nod- 
ding the head ; for whether running on the ground, or on the fences, 
along the rails, or in the water, this motion seems continual ; even 
the young, as soon as they are freed from the shell, run about con- 
stantly wagging the tail. About the middle of May they resort 
to the adjoining corn fields to breed, where I have frequently 
found and examined their nests. One of these now before me, 
and which was built at the root of a hill of Indian corn, on high 
ground, is composed wholly of short pieces of dry straw. The 
eggs are four, of a pale clay or cream color, marked with large 
irregular spots of black, and more thinly with others of a paler 
tint. They are large in proportion to the size of the bird, mea- 
suring an inch and a quarter in length, very thick at the great end, 
and tapering suddenly to the other. The young run about with 
wonderful speed as soon as they leave the shell, and are then co- 
vered with down of a dull drab color, marked with a single streak 
of black down the middle of ihe back, and with another behind 
