While these birds are flying, in the love season, the points of their wings are considerably bent down, and they propel themselves by strong and decided beats, supporting themselves afterwards by slow tremulous motions of their pinions, to the distance of some yards, when they repeat the strong beats, and thus continue until they realight, uttering all the while their well-known notes, so accurately described by my friend NUTTALL. In the autumnal months, along the shores of La Belle Riviere, I have often with much delight watched the movements of these birds, when I have been surprised to see the pertinacity with which, after the first frosts, they would pursue their migration down the stream, for on attempting to make them fly the other way, they would rise, sometimes to the height of twenty yards, and flying over head or along the river, proceed downwards, although at any other time they would exhibit no such propensity. They run along the shores, and through shallow water, with great nimbleness; and while courting, the male struts before the female, with depressed wings, spreading out his tail and trailing it along the ground, in the manner of the Migratory and Rufous Thrushes. The young become very fat in autumn, and afford delicious eating, for as they feed much on worms, aquatic insects, and small mollusca, their flesh seldom has a fishy taste. The male and female are alike, and almost equal in size. The young differ from the old until the approach of winter, when, with the exception of their being rather smaller, no difference can be perceived. This species occurs also in Europe, and a few individuals have been shot in England. TOTANUS MACULARIUS, _Temm._ Man. d’Ornith. part ii. p. 656.—_Ch. Bonaparte_, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 325. SPOTTED SANDPIPER, TRINGA MACULARIA, _Wils._ Amer. Ornith. pl. 59. fig. 1. SPOTTED TATLER or PEET WEET, _Nuttall_, Manual, vol. ii. p. 162. Adult Male. Plate CCCX. Fig. 1. Bill a little longer than the head, very slender, subcylindrical, straight, flexible, compressed, the point rather obtuse. Upper mandible with the dorsal line straight, the ridge convex, broader at the base, slightly depressed towards the end, the sides sloping, towards the end convex, the edges sharp, the tip slightly deflected. Nasal groove extending over three-fourths of the length of the bill; nostrils basal, linear, pervious. Lower mandible with the angle very long and extremely narrow, the dorsal line straight, the sides grooved at the base, convex towards the end.