274 Dr. E. Coues— From Arizona to the Pacific. 
the eyelids, a narrow ring of pure white is seen encircling the 
cornea. The bill is rather bright yellow, the culmen and gonys 
more greenish; the hard parts of the mouth the same, the soft 
fauces light purple or lavender. The insides of the legs and 
soles of the feet are black ; the outside of the tarsus and dorsum 
of the foot dull bluish-green; the centres of each web yellowish 
flesh-colour. I found their stomachs crammed with a species 
of slender aquatic grass. 
All these birds were around us while on the bay. A long 
low sandy island lies across its mouth as a breakwater; and on 
the sea-side of this the Doctor assured me I should see another 
bird that does not ever leave the sea-beach itself, and withal so 
rare in collections as to make the acquisition of good specimens 
a matter of some consequence. It was the JEgialites nivosus of 
Cassin, first noticed, I believe, by Dr. A. L. Heermann, in the 
Ornithological Report of Lieut. R. S. Williamson's Survey for a 
Pacific Railroad (1859, p. 64), under the name of “ Charadrius 
cantianus , Lath.," but very different, of course, from any other 
North American or European Plover—so much so, indeed, that 
Bonaparte places it in his genus Leucopolius. It was only a 
few hundred yards from where we landed, on the bay side of 
the island, to the shore of the i( far-resounding sea; " but, by 
racing at full speed through the heavy soft sand, joined to the 
exciting expectation of so soon seeing a new bird, I was quite 
breathless, and my heart was thumping furiously by the time I 
stepped on the moist sand. Yes ! there they were sure enough, 
a flock of snow-white little beauties, dallying so fearlessly with 
the huge waves. I fancy my chagrin and disgust must have 
partaken a little of the sublime when, after blindly blazing 
away into the flock, I picked up a capful of— Sanderlings ! Dr. 
Cooper's cachinations nowise tended to smooth my ruffled mental 
plumage. However, a few morfients afterwards a flock of JE. 
nivosus alighted close by me; and, with a little patience and 
strategy, I soon had a dozen of the lovely birds in my hands. 
They are not at all shy, rather the reverse; but the hue of their 
backs so exactly corresponds with that of the sand, that it is 
next to impossible to see them until they move. I believe they 
never leave the open sandy beach for lagunes or mud-flats. 
