SNIPES, ETC. 67

Bonaparte’s Sandpiper is a large bird and a common autumn visitant,

The Sanderling (Ca/z'a’rz's armarz'a) is a light- colored Sandpiper, larger than a Ring-neck Plover. It appears in numbers on the sea-washed reefs and dunes of our northern coast, during the autumnal migrations, while the young are in their immature plumage. They are very quiet birds, running along the sands ahead of the traveller, bobbing down to pick up seeds or insects,,utter- ing a soft, suppressed peep, to preserve the company of the flock, and caring little while they are a stone’s throw in advance of the intruder. Its presence does much, in the late autumn, to relieve the dreariness of the storm-lashed, desolate dunes by the sea.

The Willet (Synzp/zemz'a semz'pa/mata) is a large Sandpiper, being sixteen inches in length. It is light—ash, speckled with dusky above, and white below. Willets are restless and noisy birds, mak- ing themselves well known round the marsh which they frequent, but they are not common with us.

TheGreater Yellow-legs is a bird something less in size than the Willet and of darker color,

but possessmg the same gaunt, long-nosed appear-