lighter tint, on a greyish yellow ground, the spots being larger and closer towards the rounded end. Both

main with their brood until the time of their departure.” |
n of Mr. Thomas Nuttall, on the manners of the species as observed
«The Peet Weet is one of the most familiar and common of all
r-shores and low meadows about the beginning of

sexes incubate, and re

The following passage is from the pe
by him in the neighbourhood of Boston :—
the New-England marsh-birds, arriving along our rive
May, from their mild or tropical winter quarters in Mexico.
flocks are seen, at various times of the day, coursing rapidly along
circular sweeps along the meanders of the rock or river, and occasionally

As soon as it arrives on the coast, small roving
the borders of our tide-water streams,
flying swiftly and rather low in
crossing from side to side, in rather a sportive and cheerful mien, than as the needy foragers they appear at

the close of the autumn.”
Mr. Stevenson omits the Actitis macularius from his ‘ List of the Birds of Norfolk,’ questions the evidence

upon which a single example was recorded by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher as having been killed at
Runton, near Cromer, on the 26th of September, 1839, and further states ‘‘I am the more desirous of
giving publicity to this fact since the claim of the Spotted Sandpiper to be included even in the list of
British Birds rested solely for some years upon this particular specimen as recorded by Yarrell.”

It has sometimes been a question with me whether the spottings on the breast of this bird are not purely
seasonal; for I have seen many individuals apparently adult, especially from Venezuela, from which they have
been absent: one thing is certain, the young during the first autumn have plain breasts, at which stage of
their existence they closely assimilate to Actitis hypoleucos.

The Plate represents an adult male and female, and young in the plumage of the first autumn, all of the

natural size.