This courtship song has been described at great length and with much appreciation by Robert T. Moore (1912) from intimate studies made by him on five nesting birds in the Magdalen Islands, and he has recorded these songs in musical notation. He ranks it high among bird songs and dwells on its tremulous and pathetic qualities. He observed one that rendered its entire song from the ground within a foot of his hand. "It consisted of a series of trills, which ascended just one octave on a minor chord. The tone quality was pure and sweet and rendered pathetic by the minor chord, which served as its medium." He says of the records he made of the flight songs of three birds that-- Each in its notes, progressions, and even time is totally different from the others, yet, without sight of the bird, I would instantly recognize them as songs of the least sandpiper. This is due to the fact that the quality of tone is constant in all, being pure and sweet, the tempo is aways extremely fast, the notes being delivered with great rapidity, and the pitch high. Trills and runs are characteristic and make an additional recognition quality. All these observations were made on birds that were both incubating and singing. On one occasion only did he see two birds together. This flight song piped overhead and was sung over and over again with a tremulous zest. Alternating with it, was repeated for long intervals an excited call of two notes. We glanced up and for the first time beheld two adult least sandpipers together. Alternately they flapped and soared and circled about in rapturous fashion. For several minutes the alternation of song and call continued without break of any kind. Sometimes the song was given three times consecutively and followed by as many as 30 or 40 repetitions of the call, this in turn to be followed by the song again. W.E. Saunders (1902) has recorded the courtship as observed by him at Sable Island. He was there between May 16 and 23, too early for nesting. He says: "I found them invariably in pairs, evidently mated, and often sitting so close together that two could be obtained at a single shot if desired." To his ear the song notes resembled somewhat those of the spotted sandpiper. He says of the courtship flight: Sometimes both birds would be in the air at once, but whether the female gave the note as well as the male, I could not definitely ascertain without shooting the birds, which I was very loath to do. The note would be given continuously for perhaps three or four minutes, during which time the bird flies slowly with steady flapping of the wings, mounting in the air gradually until, when watching them in the evening, one loses sight of them in the gloom.