Several observers have remarked on the remarkable tameness of the red-backed sandpiper. William Brewster (1925) spent two hours photographing five of these birds within 8 feet of his boat on an open mud flat; they paid no attention to his movements, the click of the camera, or the flapping of the focusing cloth; "during much of the time they were apparently asleep;" he even had difficulty in frightening them away until he splashed water on them. I have frequently walked up to within a few feet of feeding birds and had some difficulty in inducing them to fly more than a short distance. Their eyesight is keen enough, however, as shown by an incident related by W. E. Saunders (1896). A bird which had been feeding near him for about an hour, stopped, looked steadily, as if afraid, and "shrank down flat on the ground, where he lay perfectly still." After some time Mr. Saunders discovered an eagle approaching, so far away that he could hardly see him. After the eagle had passed the sandpiper resumed his feeding. _Voice._--The red-backed sandpiper is usually silent when on the ground. John T. Nichols, in his notes, calls the "flushing note of a single bird a fine _chit-l-it_. Its flight note is an emphatic near-whistled _chu_ or _chru_, resembling some of the calls of the pectoral and semipalmated sandpipers, but quite diagnostic when one is sufficiently familiar with it. This call may also be phonetically suggested by the syllable _purre_, which is a colloquial name of the European dunlin, of which it is a race." Doctor Townsend (1905) says: "The note is plaintive and sometimes melodious, and recalls, without its harshness, the cry of the common tern." Mr. Murdoch (1885) and others have noticed that the rolling call, heard on the breeding grounds in June, "reminds one of the notes of the frogs in New England in spring." A bird which Mr. Brewster (1925) flushed "uttered a peculiarly mellow _tweet-twel-l-l-ut_ just as it rose on wing." _Field marks._--In spring plumage the American dunlin deserves the name red backed, for its back is even redder than that of its European relative; at that season the black patch on the belly is very conspicuous, even at a long distance, so that the species is easily recognized. It is a short-legged, rather stocky bird, about the size of the sanderling, and can be identified in the fall by its rather long and somewhat curved bill and its dull, mouse-colored back. A narrow white stripe in the wing can be seen in flight. _Fall._--Of their departure from Alaska, Doctor Nelson (1887) writes: