280 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
pitifully, their neighbors joining forces to protect both eggs and young 
(Conover, 1926, p. 309). On then* migrations, Messrs. Bowles and 
Howell write from Santa Barbara, “sometimes these little gleaners 
fairly swarm in their favorite haunts, and it is a beautiful sight, when 
some Marsh Hawk in search of mice flops over them, to see the whole 
flock rise as one bird and go through precise evolutions of wheeling 
and fleeing up the shore, all the time twittering blithely” (1912, p. 9). 
SANDERLING: Crocethia dlba (Pallas) 
Description. — Length: 7-8.7 inches, wing 4.7-5, bill .9-1, tarsus .9-1. Toes 
only three. Adults in breeding plumage: Foreparts and back pale rusty or cinnamon 
mixed with grayish white and streaked with black; rump brownish gray, feathers 
darker centrally, edged with pale gray and white; upper toil coverts and tail grading 
from black through brown to white; wing with, conspicuous white bar , strikingly 
contrasted with blackish quills , axillars and wing linings white; chin, throat, and under¬ 
parts immaculate white in strong contrast to rusty of neck and chest; iris brown, bill, 
legs, and feet black. Adults in winter plumage: Face and underparts snowy white; 
upper parts gray with dark shaft streaks except for blackish quills and bend of wing. 
One still in the breeding plumage was seen by Bowles and Howell August 25, 1911. 
Young: Above pale grayish, spotted with blackish and whitish; chest more or less 
tinged with dull buff. 
Comparisons. —The striking white bar in sharp contrast to the black quills is 
characteristic in all plumages, the rusty or cinnamon fore parts characteristic in 
summer and the pure white breast and pale gray back in fall plumage. 
Range. —Nearly cosmopolitan. Breeds on Arctic coast and islands from Point 
Barrow, Alaska, to northern Greenland; also in Iceland, Spitzbergen and northern 
Siberia; winters in the Western Hemisphere from British Columbia (a few), Wash¬ 
ington, California, Texas, and east to coast of Virginia south to Argentina and Chile. 
State Records. —There are about a dozen records of the Sanderling in Colorado 
covering both migrations; and it is probably equally rare in New Mexico. About 
1854 Dr. Henry saw a few in September near Fort Thorn, and this constitutes the 
sole record of the species in New Mexico.—W. W. Cooke. 
Habitat. —As the Sanderling is usually found on the pale sands of 
the seashore in migration and in winter, its whiteness at those times 
as well as its absence from New Mexico are easily understood. 
AVOCETS AND STILTS: Family Recurvirostridae 
The twelve species comprising this family are distributed through¬ 
out the warmer parts of the world. 
They are called Wading Snipe, 
as they feed in shallow water, 
wading to their bellies, but when 
necessary they swim with ease. 
In correlation with their habits, 
their legs and bills are extremely 
long and slender, their toes 
webbed at base, and their plumage underneath dense as in true 
water-birds. 
Fig. 45. Avocct 
