_Hab._ Southern parts of South America, from Peru to Patagonia.
In the Argentine provinces this bird is called _Dormilon_ (Sleepy-head), in allusion to its dull habits, which are like those of a nocturnal species. It passes the daylight hours concealed in dense reed-beds, rising only when almost trodden on; the flight is feeble and erratic, the rapid wing-flutterings alternating with intervals of gliding, and after going a short distance the bird drops again like a Rail into the rushes. From its behaviour on the ground, also in flying, when it appears dazed with the light, I have no doubt that it is altogether nocturnal or crepuscular in its habits. It is solitary and resident, and may be met with in small numbers in every marsh or stream in the Plata district, where its favourite reed-beds afford it cover. It appears to have no cry or note of any kind, for even when frightened from its nest and when the eggs are on the point of hatching it utters no sound. The eggs never exceed two in number and are placed on the wet ground, often without any lining, among the close grass and herbage near the water. They are oblong and bluntly pointed at the smaller end, and have a white ground-colour, but so densely marked and blotched with black that in some cases they appear to be almost wholly of that colour, or like black eggs flecked with white.
+Tringa maculata+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 145; _iid. P. Z. S._ 1873, p. 455; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 43 (Chupat), et 1878, p. 68 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 314 (Entrerios); _Saunders, Yarrell's Birds_, iii. p. 368. +Actodromas maculata+, _Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A._ i. p. 232. +Tringa acuminata pectoralis+, _Seebohm, Plovers_, p. 443.
_Description._--Above brown, varied with black; superciliaries whitish; rump and middle upper tail-coverts blackish, lateral upper tail-coverts white: beneath white; neck and breast pale greyish streaked with blackish: whole length 8·5 inches, wing 5·1, tail 2·4, bill 1·1. _Female_ similar.
[Illustration: Tail-feathers of PECTORAL SANDPIPER. (Seebohm's 'Plovers,' p. 443.)]
_Hab._ Arctic America, migrating south to Patagonia in winter.
The Pectoral Sandpiper is a well-known North-American species that visits the south during migration. It breeds abundantly in Alaska, and descends in winter through Central and South America to Chili and Patagonia. Durnford found it abundant about the salt-lagoons of Chupat. Near the end of August it begins to arrive in La Plata, usually in very small flocks or singly; and among these first-comers there are some young birds so immature and weak in appearance that one can scarcely credit the fact that so soon after being hatched they have actually performed the stupendous journey from the northern extremity of the North-American continent to the Buenos-Ayrean pampas.