The Sanderling 
nimble, these birds think nothing of quitting a locality upon the slightest 
suggestion of danger up-shore. And for the same reason they do not 
hesitate to re-establish themselves at a few rods’ remove. On the other 
hand, a person seated quietly on the sand, say thirty feet from the water’s 
edge, may see a company of rather conscious pipers approaching up wind. 
The picking is good. It would be too bad not to finish the row. There 
are hesitations, huddlings, cautions, feints, and miniature retreats. They 
are as conscious as schoolboys about to say a piece. Finally, some brave 
Roderick makes a dash and goes scudding past. Others follow, and the 
ordeal is done without the humiliation of flight. 
In observing a large flock which had been several times disturbed, I 
noted that immediately upon alighting at the water’s edge they dispatched 
an attacking force up the beach slope to deploy as skirmishers over the 
dry, level sands at the top. When threatened, this vanguard invariably 
reassembled and pattered, or fled, down the slope to rejoin the reserves 
before taking Anal flight. This was done so quickly and so methodically 
as to argue the utmost familiarity of usage. 
Although Sanderlings rarely visit the lagoons or mudflats, they spend 
a good deal of time resting in the upper sands; or after an elaborate toilet 
beside some tidal pool, they foregather with the gulls and take one-legged 
snoozes in serene content. 
A single leg serves many birds as a prop during the hours of slumber, 
but it has remained for the Sanderling to perfect hopping as a means of 
locomotion. One’s sympathies are aroused at first upon seeing one poor 
little piper making prodigious hops in the effort to keep up with the re¬ 
treating wave—and doing very well at it too—but when he sees a dozen 
Taken in Santa Barbara 
Photo by the Author 
A LJTTLE ASSISTANCE FROM THE LIFTED WING’; 
birds at once running about on one leg, he realizes that it is just a boyish 
prank. It’s more fun than stilts, apparently, and never a broken nose 
to pay for it. 
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