TRINGA PUS1LLA. 
370 
GENUS V. TRINGA. THE SANDPIPERS. 
Gen. Cn. Bill, usually short, twice as long as head, straight or but little curved. Coracoids, exceeding in length the 
height of keel. Outer marginal indentations, deeper than inner. 
The legs are variable in length but are never very long. The stomach is flat or cuboid in form, quite muscular, and 
lined with a hard, rugose membrane. Proventriculus, moderate. Intestines, large and short, with the coeca quite long. 
Sterno-trachealis, not stout, and there is a slight bronchialis, but no other laryngeal muscles. Tympaniform membrane, 
present, but there is no os transversale. Sexes, quite similar. There are ten species within our limits. 
TRINGA PUSILLA. 
Semipalmated. Sandpiper. 
Tringapusilla Linn., Syst., Nat., 1; 1766, 252. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Sp. Cn. Form, slender. Size, small. Tail, doubly emarginate. Tongue, rather fleshy and wide at base, narrowing 
toward tip which is horny and pointed. Bill, stout and widened at tip. Toes, provided with a basal membrane. Outer 
marginal indentations, twice as deep as inner. 
Color. Adult. Above, ashy-gray, each feather having a dark-brown center. Wings, upper tail coverts, and two 
central tail feathers, dark-brown, with the remainder of latter, ashy. • Line from bill over eye and entire under parts, white, 
rather finely streaked on sides of head, on neck, across breast, and on sides with dark-brown. 
Young. More uniformly ashy above, with a slight tinge of reddish to the edges of the feathers, and lacks, in a great 
measure, the markings below. Bill and feet, black, iris, brown, in all stages. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
Readily known by the small size, black legs, stout bill, andmembrane between toes. Distributed in summer, from Lab¬ 
rador, northward; wintering from the Carolinas, southward. 
DIMENSIONS. 
Average measurements of specimens from Eastern America. Length, 6'73; stretch, IP95; wing, 3'75; tail, P41; bill, 
•92; tarsus, '79. Longest specimen, 6 86; greatest extent of wing, 12‘75; longest wing, 4'15; tail, 1‘80; bill, 124; tarsus, -98. 
Shortest specimen, 5 60; smallest extent of wing, 1114; shortest wing, 3*30; tail, P03; bill, ‘60; tarsus, '60. 
DESCRIPTION OF NESTS AND EGGS. 
Eggs, placed on the ground in a depression of the soil, on a little grass. They are from two to four in number decid¬ 
edly pyriform in shape, varying from greenish to yellowish-ash in color, spotted, blotched, and dotted irregularly and thick¬ 
ly, with brown of varying shades. Dimensions from ‘80 x P20 to - 85 x P25. 
HABITS. 
The Semipalmated Sandpipers, or Black-legged Peeps as they are known to sports¬ 
men, arrive from the North, among the first of the southward flying shore birds, some mak¬ 
ing their appearance as early as the first week in July. They come slowly at first but soon 
the flocks increase in size, until every creek, river mouth, and bay, along the coast, is 
swarming with them, while they are often found in the interior, and I once shot several that 
were feeding around a small pool, left by the rain, at Watsontown, Pennsylvania. Al¬ 
though this species occurs on the marshes, they have a predilection for beaches which bor¬ 
der on rivers or the open sea, where they may be seen with the larger wading birds, and 
often accompany .them in their flights. These birds are very abundant in the South and I 
have frequently observed flocks of this and the succeeding species on Indian River, Flori¬ 
da, which numbered among the thousands, occupying a stretch of shore nearly as far as the 
eye could reach. They linger during their autumnal migration until the first of October, 
but when on their way north in spring, like all shore birds, move quite rapidly, passing a 
given point in a few days. These Sandpipers, like many of the genus, breed in the far 
North, placing their eggs on the ground, usually choosing some marshy locality as a breed¬ 
ing ground. 
