Tail-feathers of Pectoral Sandpiper.
(Seebohm’s ‘Plovers,’ p. 443.)
Hab. Arctic America, migrating south to Patagonia in winter.
The Pectoral Sandpiper is a well-known North-American species that visits the south during migration. It breeds abundantly in Alaska, and descends in winter through Central and South America to Chili and Patagonia. Durnford found it abundant about the salt-lagoons of Chupat. Near the end of August it begins to arrive in La Plata, usually in very small flocks or singly; and among these first-comers there are some young birds so immature and weak in appearance that one can scarcely credit the fact that so soon after being hatched they have actually performed the stupendous journey from the northern extremity of the North-American continent to the Buenos-Ayrean pampas.
This species differs from other Sandpipers in being much more solitary and sedentary in its ways, feeding for hours in one spot, and in its Snipe-like habit of sitting close when approached and remaining motionless watching the intruder; also in its language, its low, soft, tremulous cry when flying being utterly unlike the sharp and clicking sounds emitted by other species. During the hot months, when water begins to fail, they occasionally congregate in flocks, sometimes as many as two or three hundred individuals being seen together; but at all times it is more usual to see them in very small flocks or singly.
[400.] TRINGA BAIRDI (Coues).
(BAIRD’S SANDPIPER.)
Tringa dorsalis, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 503 (Mendoza)? Tringa bairdi, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 145; iid. P. Z. S. 1868, p. 144, et 1873, p. 455 (Buenos Ayres); Seebohm, Plovers, p. 444. Actodromas bairdi, Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A. i. p. 230.
Description.—Above brown varied with blackish; rump and upper tail-coverts blackish: beneath white, neck and sides of breast pale fulvous-brown, with blackish shaft stripes; bill and feet black: whole length 6·8 inches, wing 4·5, tail 2·1. Female similar.
