Sandfly

“ These sand-birds feed on the shore till they are chock brimful, and the tide comes and drives them off; then they fly on to these ledges; but they are as afraid of getting wet as a cat; and when the tide comes up around the rock, they huddle together to keep out of the water, till they are all in a bunch, and the rock looks blue with them; it’s the greatest chance for a shot ”

“ It is very interesting to observe the habits of the Sandhoppers and other Amphipods both on the sandy beach and in the water, and the student will find that certain species burrow into the sand with considerable agility, and live principally at the extreme high-water mark, where they feed on the organic matter washed in by the breakers at each high tide, while others dwell almost exclusively in the water, among weeds and stones, and should be searched for at low water. ”

“ The sombre tints of so many insects, birds and animals are cases in point, as are the golden coat of the spider that lurks in the buttercup, and the green mottlings of the underwings of the orange-tip butterfly. Where absolute hiding is impossible, as on the African desert, we find every bird and insect, without exception, assimilating the colour of the sand. ”

“ A beautiful and far-famed insect—do not mistake, I mean neither the Emperor, nor the King of Sardinia, but a much finer specimen—the fire-fly. Their bright light is evanescent, and alternates with the darkness, as if the swift whirling of the earth struck fire out of the black atmosphere; as if the winds were being set upon that planetary grindstone, and gave out such momentary sparks from their edges. Their silence is more striking than their flashes, for sudden phenomena are almost invariably attended with some noise, but these little jewels dart along the dark as softly as butterflies. ”

“ But the sand-fly, bad as he is, can be persuaded out of your tent by a fire; he does not abound except in sandy localities; his bite does not draw blood, nor raise a lump, and is not permanent; he does not compare with the black fly.
The latter comes without a warning note; he bites till the blood runs in a stream, and inflicts the sharpest pain; he clings fast till he is absolutely rubbed off, and crawls up your sleeve or pants or down your neck; he loves not the fire, nor fears the smoke; he cannot be enticed nor driven away. The mosquito comes numerous as the rain-drops in a shower ”

“ At high tide on the beaches, when the wet sand with its bountiful food supply is covered, great flocks of this species, together with the least sandpiper, the sanderling, and the semipalmated plover, often spend an hour or more huddled together on the dry sand. Each species keeps more or less separate. The birds generally face the wind, but sometimes they arrange themselves in the lee of bits of driftwood or other obstructions, and "tail out" down wind in long streamers as it were, each sheltered by the one next to windward. ”

“ Hence, as the head of the ant-lion is immersed in the sand, it is evident that the accounts given in popular works of the instinct by which it throws the sand in the direction of the escaping prey are not quite correct. The act of throwing up the sand, when an insect has fallen into the pit and attempts to escape, has evidently for its chief object that of making the pit deeper and more conical, and therefore more difficult of ascent. ”

“ Least in size, but in its capacity for annoyance greatest, perhaps, of all, is the sand fly. Almost microscopic, but with delicate grey wings, of a shape that Titania's self might wear, they slip through the holes of mosquito gauze and torment our feet by night and day. The three-day fever they leave behind is yet as nothing compared to the itching fury that persists for days. ”

“ Its food consists of crustaceans, sand-worms, molluscs, and insects; and, during summer, of seeds as well. Although most of this food is obtained whilst the tide is driving in, the bird may be seen in quest of it at the ebb. It frequently retires inland a little way, or rests upon a rocky islet or point, between the ebb and the flow of the tide. Its flight is rapid and straightforward, and often accompanied by its shrill and quickly uttered tee-wit. The Purple Sandpiper, though social, is never seen on our coasts in very large flocks, and, perhaps, most frequently in pairs or alone. ”

“ Dragon-flies hover over the moist spots, transparent wings carrying coral-red bodies, and two sand-wasps pilot my steps, following the narrow ribbon of bare ground as a fish the course of a shallow stream, buzzing ominously as if in warning of some possible mischance. They are friends, and will in a moment swerve, and boom back to the shafts they have excavated in sand as depositaries for their eggs, and into which they will pack living caterpillars as fresh food for their young. They dig with such deftness and vigour that the sand is expelled in a continuous jet. ”

“ But surely such little creatures as sandhoppers cannot do very much good, even by eating decaying seaweed. Ah! but there are so many of them! Wherever the shore is sandy they live in thousands, and even in millions. If you walk along the edge of the sea, sometimes, when the tide is rising, you will see them skipping about in such vast numbers that the air looks as if it were filled with a kind of mist for a foot or eighteen inches from the ground. ”

“ When the tide is out, you may see the tiny forms of these common ring-necks mingled with the ever-friendly little sandpipers on the exposed sand bars and wide beaches where all keep up a constant hunt for bits of shell fish, fish eggs and sand worms. ”

“ Wherever there is a river, many-coloured armies, bivouacked amidst its various shoals and reefs, sit sucking water through, the moist particles of the sand, whilst others, in even greater numbers, pass and repass from one bank to another, making, however wide the waterway, an aerial fluttering bridge. Other butterflies, also denizens of the great Brazilian or Central American forests, have broad white wings, shot with a satiny lustre, whilst those of yet another are like glass, with one opaque spot of violet and blue, in the midst of each of them. ”

“ While with us the white-rumped sandpiper frequents the wet meadows and marshes near the shore, as well as the sand flats, mud flats, and beaches, feeding at low tide singly or in small flocks and usually associated with pectoral, semipalmated, or least sandpipers. During high tides, while the flats are covered, this species may be seen on the high sandy beaches, mixed in with the vast flocks of small shorebirds, sleeping, or resting, or preening their plumage, while waiting for feeding time to come again; if the wind is blowing, all the birds are facing it ”

“ Sandpipers don't bore in the ground for their food, but just pick it up; so they keep along the shore of either fresh or salt water, some kinds choosing one place and some another. The Spotted Sandpiper is another of the little fellows who sometimes nests back in those meadows. ”

“ Behavior.—The flight of the purple sandpiper suggests at times that of the spotted sandpiper, for when disturbed singly along the shore it is apt to fly out over the water with rapid downward wing strokes and, describing a large semicircle, return to the shore some distance ahead. When flying in a flock the birds are often closely bunched, the whole flock wheeling and turning in unison, showing alternately their dark bodies and their white bellies, in true sandpiper fashion. As a rule they do not make very long flights or fly very high. ”

“ Oh! had I but a hive to go to," continued he, as he stretched his wings to accompany his friend, "how many times should I have gone thither yesterday, and to-day from the cowslips and the beans, and what repeated loads should I have carried home."
"Surely, surely," thought the idle Butterfly, "you need not regret that; to fly hither and thither as you like, with no incumbrance of any kind, and, no care beyond to-morrow, is far better;" so thought the Butterfly, and so perhaps think many Butterflies of the human race ”

“ These so abound on sandy shores that often the whole surface of the sand seems to be alive with the multitudes which, leaping up for a few inches into the air, fill it like a swarm of dancing flies. They may also be found by digging in the sand, in which they burrow. ”

“ The frontal hernia that crumbles the sand with its impact has a tendency to make play for some time after the emergence from the ground. Take hold with the forceps of one of the hind legs of a newly released fly. Forthwith, the implement of the head begins to work, swelling and subsiding as energetically as a moment ago, when it had to make a hole in the sand. The insect, hampered in its movements as when it was underground, struggles as best it can against the only obstacle that it knows. ”

“ There is no looking ahead in such a wind, and the bite of the small sharp sand on exposed skin is keener than any insect sting. One might sleep, for the lapping of the wind wears one to the point of exhaustion very soon, but there is dread, in open sand stretches sometimes justified, of being over blown by the drift. ”

“ The men, the children, the buffaloes, gambol in its refreshing waters, the broad waves sparkle with shoals of fish, and fowl of every wing flutter over them in clouds. Nor is this jubilee of Nature confined to the higher orders of creation. The moment the sand becomes moistened by the 232 approach of the fertilising waters, it is literally alive with insects innumerable. ”

“ They secure their food by a skimming like movement of the bill over the surface of the mud that has just been covered by the water, and as the birds advance or retreat in following the flow it is quite amusing to observe the seeming pains taken to avoid coming into contact with it. And still at times individuals may be seen in some of the very shallow spots. It is a fine sight to see a flock of these sandpipers suddenly take alarm as they are feeding ”

“ These sandpipers seem to prefer to feed at or near the waters edge, particularly where there is an ebb and flow, being very active in following up the water as it recedes and equally so in avoiding its incoming, but always at the very edge as it were. ”

“ The Butterfly testified his thanks by a fluttering of his wings; "but I do not particularly relish that food," said he, "and you would perhaps wonder what it is we do eat, for it is no uncommon opinion that we live upon air; however, in our reptile state, we make up for our little eating now; were you to [Pg 31] see the devastation we make in the vegetable world, you would be surprised; three or four dozen of us will destroy a bed of cabbages in an hour or two, and we often strip a shrub of all its leaves in the course of a morning." ”

“ If the bird or birds had got young in the water-spout hard by, or in the hole often left by builders missing a brick at the end of a row of houses, in ivy, or in the thick foliage of the Virginia creeper, the young birds get the ‘catch.’ Besides this fly-catching, I have noticed for the last few weeks the sparrows working in every evergreen bush, also in jessamines, in lilac-trees, and especially in the crevices of old walls, in search of spiders, earwigs, green-fly, daddy long-legs, etc. ”

“ Any pond, lake or stream will be visited sooner or later by these little sandpipers. You find them teetering along shores, picking up insects and small crustacea which form the diet. Mud banks, sandy shores, pebbly mountain streams, half-sunken logs, all furnish happy hunting grounds.
The teetering tail is distinctive and no other sandpiper has the round black spots on his breast and none has the fluttering flight. They seem to tip-toe thru the air with very short wingbeats. Young and adults in winter plumage do not show the spots but continue to teeter. ”

“ If it has settled on the plain sand or on the water's edge, or near a tidal pool, it runs rapidly, without hopping, stoops its head, picks up a worm, a portion of shellfish, or a sand-hopper, runs, stops, pecks, and runs again, but does not allow any one to come so near as before. ”

“ The woods throb with the muffled beat of the partridge's drum and the sharp tattoo of the woodpecker, and are filled again with the sounds of insect life, the spasmodic hum of flies, the droning monotone of bees busy among the catkins and squirrelcups, and you may see a butterfly, wavering among the [29] gray trees, soon to come to the end of his life, brief at its longest, drowned in the seductive sweets of a sap bucket. ”

“ And she said, "Me, oh, my—but those pen wipers and pencil sharpeners hate each other." And she turned her eyes toward the flicks and spots of new green grass coming on the hills and the prairie, and she let her ears listen to the young frogs shooting silver spears of little songs up into the sky that day. ”

“ The partial prenuptial molt of adults comes in April and May and involves the body plumage, but not all the scapulars or rump or wing coverts.
Food.—Red-backed sandpipers obtain their food on the ocean beaches at low tide, on sandy flats or on mud flats, often feeding in company with sanderlings, or with other small shore birds. Some writers have referred to them as nervous and active running about in a lively manner while feeding, but I have usually found them rather sluggish and inactive at such times, easily approached and unsuspicious. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Butterfly waited without the hive, till his friend returned, and they renewed their flight.
Nothing particular met their eye till they passed some flies, who were round [Pg 124] a piece of horse-flesh, the smell of which discovered where it lay, and its half devoured state shewed the avidity with which these buzzing insects fed upon it. "See," said the Bee, "what opposite natures are within the circle of creation. These devouring flies find as much pleasure in eating from this stinking carrion, as from the choicest honey ”