Chapter XV: Introduction (14)

The four eggs of the red-backed sandpiper, which is their
complement, are very handsome and show more variation than the eggs
of most of the other shore birds breeding in the Hooper Bay region.
In shape they are subpyriform to ovate pyriform and rest amid the
leafy nest lining with the small ends together often so placed that
the sitting bird during incubation touches only the larger ends.
The shell is not as strong as many shore-bird eggs of the same size
but they are not fragile by any means and they have considerable
luster. As was true of many of the limicoline eggs found along that
Bering Sea coast, there were two general types of ground color--the
one, the greenish, that predominated by a ratio of about 15 to
1--and the other was the brownish type. The ground color ranges
from "pale glaucous green"--that is the most common type--to
"glaucous green," while the brownish-tinged eggs shade from "olive
buff" to "dark olive buff." The surface markings are conspicuous
and vary greatly, for on some types the spots are small and well
scattered over the eggs; on others they are large, irregular, and
bold; while on still other specimens they are confluent on the
larger end and form a blotch that completely decorates that part of
the egg.

These spots are irregular in shape, but are inclined to be
elongated with their axis twisting to the right, so that when a
series of eggs is viewed looking toward the larger end, the spots
produce a clockwise spiral. Some of these spots are more twisted
than others, but on a few eggs there are no spiral tendencies at
all. The surface spots are quite variable in color, dependent
largely on the thickness of the pigment deposited, for where the
latter is thin the true color is observable, but when the
decoration is liberal, the blot becomes opaque and the color is
lost. These spots range from "auburn" and "raw umber" to "chestnut
brown" and "blackish brown." The underlying spots are well hidden
by the boldness of the surface markings and inclined to be small
and regular and are often more or less numerous. Their shades are
delicate, ranging from "pallid gray" to "mouse gray." An occasional
egg exhibits scattering insignificant additional markings of deep
"blackish brown."

The measurements of 145 eggs average 36.3 by 25.3 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =40.1= by 25.9, 39.2 by =26.5=, =34= by 25, and 34.5 by =23.5= millimeters.

_Young._--Both sexes incubate and are rather close sitters, as well as devoted and bold in the defense of their young. The period of incubation is probably the same as for the European dunlin, 22 days. John Murdoch (1885) says:

Both parents share in the work of incubation, though we happened to
obtain more males than females with the eggs. The young are pretty
generally hatched by the first week in July, and both adults and
young keep pretty well out of sight till the 1st of August, when
they begin to show about the lagoons and occasionally about the
beach, many of the young birds still downy about the head. The
autumn flight of young birds appears about the middle of August,
associating with the young _A. maculata_ and _M. griseus
scolopaceus_, in good-sized flocks, particularly about the pools on
the high tundra below Cape Smythe. They continue plenty in these
localities, sometimes appearing along the beach, for about a week,
when the greater part of them depart, leaving only a few stragglers
that stay till the first few days of September.

_Plumages._--The downy young red-backed is much paler and more buffy than that of the least sandpiper. The crown, back, wings, and thighs are variegated with brownish black, "ochraceous tawny" and "hazel," except at the base of the down on the back, there is no rich, deep brown; the above parts are quite thickly sprinkled, especially on the back, with minute, round spots, terminal tufts of pale buff; a distinct stripe of these nearly encircles the posterior half of the crown. The black of the crown extends nearly to the bill and there is a black loral stripe; the rest of the head and a band across the lower throat are "warm buff." The rest of the under parts are white. The nape is a grizzly mixture of dull buff and dusky.

The juvenal plumage, as seen in Alaska in August, is strikingly handsome and quite distinctive. The feathers of the crown are dusky, edged with "ochraceous tawny"; the sides of the head and nape are "drab-gray," streaked with dusky; the feathers of the back are black, broadly edged with three colors in different areas, "ochraceous tawny," "hazel," and buffy white; the scapulars are black, edged with "light ochraceous buff"; the wing coverts are gray, tipped with pale buff; the rump and upper tail coverts are "hair brown" to "drab"; the breast is tinged with grayish and pale buff and streaked with dusky; the throat and rest of the under parts are white, conspicuously and more or less heavily spotted with dusky on the sides of the belly. This beautiful plumage is worn for only a short time and is molted before the birds leave their northern breeding grounds. The postjuvenal molt begins in August and is generally finished before October; it involves nearly all of the body plumage, nearly all of the scapulars, and some of the tertials, but not the rump, upper tail coverts, or flight feathers.

In first winter plumage young birds are much like adults, but the ashy brown upper parts are usually somewhat paler, and they can always be recognized by the juvenal wing coverts and a few retained scapulars and tertials. A partial prenuptial molt, similar to that of the adult, produces a first nuptial plumage, in which young birds can be distinguished only by the retained juvenal wing coverts. In fresh plumage the black belly patch is veiled with white tips, which soon wear away and leave this area clear black.

The first postnuptial molt of young birds and the corresponding molt of adults produce adult winter plumages. The molt is complete and begins in July or even late in June; the wings are apparently molted first in July, and are entirely renewed before the birds start to migrate; the body molt begins in August and lasts through September; there are usually traces of the old nuptial plumage left when the birds arrive here on migration. 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. Their food consists of small mollusks, sand fleas, and other small crustaceans, amphipods, flies and other insects and their larvae, diving and other aquatic beetles, marine worms, and occasionally a few seeds of aquatic plants. They are apt to gather where fish cleanings and other offal are thrown out, to feed on the flies and other insects that abound there. Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1905) writes:

In feeding they frequently plunge the bill, slightly open to its
base in the soft sand or mud, appear to work it about and when
successful draw forth an amphipod or a worm. Several times on one
occasion I saw one draw a worm to the water close at hand as if to
wash it before swallowing it. On another occasion a couple of
dunlins were so tame that it was possible to approach within 5 feet
of them. They were diligently probing in the sandy mud, wading in
water up to their bellies. At this depth it was necessary for them
to immerse their heads entirely, and I could see them shut their
eyes as they went under water. Whether the eyes were afterwards
opened or not I am unable to say. When disturbed they flew but a
short way, and if they happened to alight in water too deep for
their legs, they swam readily, as do all shore birds. When
disturbed the dunlin utters a short _kuk_. Their call note is
distinctive, and resembles somewhat the word _purre_, by which name
the European species is called. The note is plaintive and sometimes
melodious, and recalls, without its harshness, the cry of the
common tern.

_Behavior._--The earlier writers refer to this as an active, restless bird. Audubon (1840) says:

There seems to be a kind of impatience in this bird that prevents
it from remaining any length of time in the same place, and you may
see it scarcely alighted on a sand bar, fly off without any
apparent reason to another, where it settles, runs for a few
moments, and again starts off on wing.

Giraud (1844) writes:

It is a restless active bird and gleans its food with great
nimbleness, and seems to be fond of continually changing its
position. Soon after alighting they collect together and make a
short excursion over the water, again alighting a short distance
from where they had previously taken wing. During their aerial
excursions, when whirling about, they crowd so close together that
many are killed at a single shot. On one of these occasions Mr.
Brasher informs me that he killed 52 by discharging both barrels
into a flock. This number is greater than I ever before heard of;
but from 10 to 15 is not unusual.

Wilson (1832), writing when shore birds were abundant, says of this flocking habit:

These birds, in conjunction with several others, sometimes collect
together in such flocks, as to seem, at a distance, a large cloud
of thick smoke, varying in form and appearance every instant, while
it performs its evolutions in air. As this cloud descends and
courses along the shores of the ocean, with great rapidity, in a
kind of waving, serpentine flight, alternately throwing its dark
and white plumage to the eye, it forms a very grand and interesting
appearance. At such times the gunners make prodigious slaughter
among them; while, as the showers of their companions fall, the
whole body often alight, or descend to the surface with them, till
the sportsman is completely satiated with destruction.

Suckley (1860) found them equally abundant in the Puget Sound region, for he writes:

Early in the season, before they have been rendered wild by being
much shot at, I have observed that upon a volley being fired into a
flock the unharmed birds in terror sweep around in several circles,
and hovering "_bunch_," as the sportsmen say, over their wounded
companions, and sometimes realight with them. At the moment of
their hovering in a compact body over the wounded is the time
generally seized to fire the reserved barrels; two or three shots
will frequently bring down from 30 to 60 birds; and I have known
one instance where an officer of the Army bagged 96 birds from one
discharge of his fowling piece. After being fired into once or
twice the flocks, learning to avoid sympathizing with their dead
and wounded, become shy and wary.

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:

The young are mostly on the wing toward the end of July, and the
birds begin to gather into flocks along the muddy edges of the
brackish pools and the banks of tide creeks. Very soon after this
they begin to lose their summer plumage, and the molt continues
until the last of September or first of October. During the first
of October they are very common in flocks and singly among the
lakes and streams; a little later and the borders of these
situations are edged with ice and most of the birds leave for the
south, but some of the hardier ones betake themselves to the
seashore, where they join with Coues's sandpiper and remain as late
as the 12th or 13th of the month.

The southward migration separates into two widely divergent main routes, with only stragglers between. One route is southward along the Pacific coast and one southeastward along the west coast of Hudson Bay, through the eastern Great Lakes, and to the coast of New England and farther south. E. A. Preble (1902) saw them on the west coast of Hudson Bay, just commencing the migration, on July 19, and "present by thousands" south of Cape Eskimo on August 3 to 13. It seems to be a rare bird in the interior Provinces of Canada; my Manitoba correspondents have no fall records, and Professor Rowan has only one for Alberta. Mr. Brewster (1925) saw it regularly at Lake Umbagog, Maine, in October; and W. E. Clyde Todd (1904) calls it common in Erie County, Pennsylvania; probably these two points represent the north and south limits of the eastward route. Mr. Todd (1904) quotes from Samuel E. Bacon's notes as follows:

In former years extensive flights took place about the 1st of
November, upon which occasions bushels of them are said to have
fallen to a single gun. During these great flights the flocks were
accustomed to follow the outside beach of the peninsula (having
presumably come directly across the lake) to its southeastern
extremity, thence crossing over to the sand beach east of the mouth
of Mill Creek, where, after having been sadly depleted by dozens of
guns, they would finally rise high in the air and pass southward
over the mainland, flock following flock, all day long. I know this
by hearsay only, but am positive that this is the bird that used to
arrive in such numbers late in the fall. On October 29, 1897, I
killed 53 of these birds out of two flocks, comprising in all
perhaps as many more, and this is the nearest approach to a flight
that has occurred of late years.

The redbacks do not reach the Massachusetts coast in any numbers until the last week in September and the main flight comes in October, with some lingering into November and a few remain all winter occasionally. While with us they frequent the ocean beaches and salt-water mud flats, where they associate with sanderlings, ringnecks, peep, and turnstones. During high tides they rest on the high, sandy beaches in the large flocks of other small waders. They fly in close flocks, low over the water. The adults which come first, have nearly completed the body molt when they arrive here.

_Winter._--It is only a short flight farther to their winter homes on our southern coast. Dr. Louis B. Bishop (1901) found this to be "the most abundant sandpiper" on Pea Island, North Carolina, in winter. Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says that it usually arrives in South Carolina about the first week in October and remains until May 25. "With the exception of the western sandpiper, this species is the most common of all the waders that winter on the coast. It is a very hardy bird and is apparently not inconvenienced by a temperature of 6° above zero." We found it common all winter on the coastal islands and mud flats on the west coast of Florida. Mr. Nichols says in his notes:

Where met with on its winter range in northwest Florida it
apparently shifted its feeding grounds with high or low water, at
the particular locality in mind, more or less dependent on the
wind. When offshore winds caused low tides and extensive mud flats,
it was less numerous; when the water was high, numbers were seen
flying over the bay. They were present on inundated landward flats,
and, as the tide receded, fed along the edge of the bay near by,
wading in the water and often immersing most of the head as they
probed.

According to J. Hooper Bowles (1918) they winter farther north on the Pacific coast than on this side. He writes:

These birds are among the last of the Limicolae to arrive in the
fall migration, often reaching Washington after many of the other
species have left for the South. They make up for it, however, by
staying with us all winter and late into the spring. On the
Nisqually Flats I have seen them in flocks of hundreds when the
marsh was a solid pack of snow and ice, the rise and fall of the
tide making sufficient feeding grounds to keep them fat and strong.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--North America and eastern Asia; casual in Central America and the West Indies.

_Breeding range._--North to northeastern Siberia (Taimyr Peninsula, Nijni Kolymsk, Cape Wankarem, and East Cape); Alaska (Cape Prince of Wales, Point Barrow, Colville Delta, and Camden Bay); Mackenzie (Cape Bathurst, Mackenzie Bay, Franklin Bay, and Baillie Island); and Franklin (Port Kennedy). East to Franklin (Port Kennedy and Felix Harbor); and probably eastern Keewatin (Cape Fullerton). South to probably eastern Keewatin (Cape Fullerton); northwestern Mackenzie (Great Slave Lake and Peel River); and Alaska (probably Nushagak and Ugashik). West to Alaska (Ugashik, Pastolik, Hooper Bay, and St. Michael); and northeastern Siberia (Cape Serdze, Plover Bay, and Taimyr Peninsula). The species also has been recorded as breeding in Greenland, and on the coast of Labrador (Okak), but the records are indefinite or otherwise unsatisfactory.

_Winter range._--North to Washington (Dungeness Spit); Texas (Refugio County); Louisiana (Freshwater Bayou and New Orleans); and southern New Jersey (Anglesea). East to southern New Jersey (Anglesea, and Five-mile Beach); Virginia (Wallops, Cobbs, Sandy, and Hog Islands); North Carolina (Pea Island and Fort Macon); South Carolina (Port Royal and Frogmore); Georgia (Savannah and Darien); and Florida (Amelia Island, Tarpon Springs, and Fort Myers). South to Florida (Fort Myers); Texas (probably Brownsville); and Lower California (La Paz). West to Lower California (La Paz); California (San Diego, Alamitas Bay, Los Banos, San Francisco Bay, and Humboldt Bay); Oregon (Yaquina Bay); and Washington (Nisqually Flats, Tacoma, and Dungeness Spit).

It also has been noted in winter north to the mouth of the Fraser River, British Columbia (specimen in U. S. National Museum); Barnstable, Massachusetts (Howe, December 23, 1903); Long Island, New York (Fleischer, December 25, 1914); and south to Great Inagua, Bahama Islands (Worthington, February 3, 1909).

_Spring migration._--Early dates of arrival in the spring are: New York, Long Island, April 3, Canandaigua, April 20, and Orient, May 7; Rhode Island, Block Island, May 12; Massachusetts, Monomoy Island, April 13, Rehoboth, May 2, and Boston, May 4; Quebec, Quebec, May 2; Illinois, Addison, May 9; Ohio, Youngstown, April 18, Cedar Point, May 8, Tiffin, May 10, and Oberlin, May 11; Michigan, Jackson, May 4, Detroit, May 13, and Ann Arbor, May 14; Ontario, Toronto, May 12, and Point Pelee, May 13; Iowa, Sigourney, May 13; Wisconsin, Whitewater, May 1, Madison, May 10, and Elkhorn, May 13; Minnesota, Heron Lake, May 11, Waseca, May 14, and Hutchinson, May 18; eastern Nebraska, Lincoln, May 7; South Dakota, Vermilion, April 29, and Huron, May 6; North Dakota, Sweetwater, May 10; Manitoba, Whitewater Lake, May 12, and Shoal Lake, May 22; British Columbia, Courtenay, April 18, Chilliwak, April 25, and Metlakatla, April 29; Yukon, Dawson, May 24; Alaska, Howcan, April 2, Kuiu Island, April 28, Craig, May 1, mouth of the Yukon River, May 10, Admiralty Island, May 14, Fort Kenai, May 16, and Point Barrow, May 31; and Siberia, Bering Island, May 26, and Nijni Kolymsk, May 28.

Late dates of spring departure are: Florida, Gasparilla Island, May 24, St. Marks, May 26, and New Smyrna, May 26; Georgia, Savannah, May 29; South Carolina, Mount Pleasant, May 29; North Carolina, Fort Macon, May 22, and Churchs Island, May 26; Virginia, Pig Island, May 28; New Jersey, Anglesea, May 20; New York, Canandaigua, May 26, New York City, May 30, Rockaway, June 3, and Geneva, June 7; Massachusetts, Cape Cod, May 22, and Ipswich, May 30; Maine, Scarboro, June 2; Quebec, Quebec City, May 28; Illinois, Waukegan, May 27, Riverdale, May 31, and Chicago, June 5; Ohio, Painesville, May 27, Oberlin, June 1, and Lakeside, June 16; Michigan, Sault Ste. Marie, May 29, Detroit, May 30, and Neebish Island, June 3; Ontario, Mitchell's Bay, June 1, Hamilton, June 3, Point Pelee, June 10, and Toronto, June 13; Iowa, Emmetsburg, May 25, Storm Lake, May 26, and Sioux City, June 4; Wisconsin, Madison, May 27, and Green Bay, June 4; Minnesota, Lanesboro, May 30, Heron Lake, June 2, and Wilder, June 10; Texas, Fort Brown, May 16, Dallas, May 20, and Corpus Christi, May 29; eastern Nebraska, Lincoln, June 9; South Dakota, Vermilion, May 24, and Forestburg, May 30; North Dakota, Jerusalem, June 1; Manitoba, Killarney, May 28, and Shoal Lake, June 5; California, Fresno, May 15, Santa Barbara, May 17, and Alameda, May 21; Oregon, Beaver Creek, Lincoln County, May 18, and Silver Lake, June 4; and British Columbia, Cowickan, May 18.

_Fall migration._--Early dates of fall arrival are: Washington, Smith Island, August 14, and Point Chehalis, August 20; California, Santa Barbara, September 9, Alameda, September 19, and Hayward, September 20; Manitoba, Gimli, August 20; South Dakota, Forestburg, July 30; eastern Nebraska, Lincoln, September 1; Minnesota, Wilder, September 16; Ontario, Brighton, July 31, and Ottawa, August 21; Michigan, Saginaw Bay, August 20, and Ann Arbor, September 21; Ohio, Youngstown, August 10, Pelee Island, August 15, and Cleveland, August 22; Illinois, Chicago, July 22; Quebec, Godbout, September 7; Massachusetts, Norton, August 26, and Taunton, September 1; New York, Orient, August 11, Canandaigua, September 14, and Ithaca, September 24; Pennsylvania, Erie, September 25; Maryland, Lock Raven, September 3; District of Columbia, Washington, September 25; Virginia, Smiths Island, September 28; and South Carolina, Mount Pleasant, September 30.

Late dates of fall departures are: Siberia, Bering Island, October 25; Alaska, Sitka, October 10, mouth of the Yukon River, October 13, and St. Paul Island, October 30; British Columbia, Comox, October 22, and Chilliwack, November 29; Manitoba, Lake Winnipeg, October 31; eastern Nebraska, Lincoln, November 7; Minnesota, Hallock, October 16; Wisconsin, Madison, November 15; Iowa, Keokuk, October 4, and Marshalltown, October 12; Ontario, Ottawa, October 29, and Long Point, November 2; Michigan, Detroit, October 11, Sault Ste. Marie, October 22, and St. Clair Flats, November 20; Ohio, Huron, November 5, Youngstown, November 8, and Columbus, November 28; Illinois, Chicago, October 31, Lake Forest, November 3, and La Grange, November 6; Maine, Lewiston, October 12, and Portland, November 25; Massachusetts, Lynn, November 3, Boston, November 10, and Monomoy Island, November 14; Rhode Island, Block Island, November 16; Connecticut, Fairfield, November 29; New York, Orient, November 12, and Long Beach, December 25; and Pennsylvania, Erie, November 3.

_Casual records._--Accidental occurrences of the red-backed sandpiper have been reported mostly from the Rocky Mountain States. Among these are: Arizona, near Tucson, April, 1883; Nevada, Pyramid Lake, May, 1868; and Utah, Ogden and Salt Lake City (reported in September by Allen). It also has been reported as detected at Dominica, West Indies, October 1, 1904; and at Momotombo, Nicaragua, on May 23. (This last record represented by a specimen in the British Museum.)

_Egg dates._--Alaska: 83 records, May 26 to July 8; 42 records, June 4 to 30. Arctic Canada: 15 records, June 5 to July 7; 8 records, June 26 to July 3.

EROLIA FERRUGINEA (Brünnich)

CURLEW SANDPIPER

_Contributed by Francis Charles Robert Jourdain_

HABITS

The curlew sandpiper is only an occasional visitor to America, and with the exception of a single record from Point Barrow all the recorded instances have been reported from the eastern side of the Continent. It has been met with in Canada on two occasions, about ten times in the Eastern States, twice in the West Indies and once in Patagonia.

_Courtship._--Very few observations on this species have been made on its breeding grounds in eastern Siberia, so our information as to its courtship is still very defective. The late Dr. H. Walter, during his enforced detention on the Taimyr Peninsula, from September, 1900, to August, 1901, while frozen in on board the exploring ship "Sarja," noted that they arrived on the Peninsula on June 13, and from that date onward were to be met with chasing one another in little parties of three or four over the tundra. There is no mention of any song flight (as in _Crocethia alba_, _Erolia temminchii_, _Arquatella maritima_, _Calidris canutus_, etc.).

_Nesting._--The usual nesting place is on the gentle slope of the drier tundra, where the reindeer moss is interspersed with tufts of wiry grass and allowing a wide field of view over the neighborhood. Miss Haviland (1915_a_) noted that the actual nest hollow was rather deep, so that the pointed ends of the eggs were pointed downwards almost vertically. Walter describes them as shallow depressions, lined with a few dry bents, but H. L. Popham (1898) also remarks that "the nest was a rather deep hollow amongst the reindeer moss in an open space on a ridge of ground, somewhat drier than the surrounding swampy tundra, in much the same sort of place as that generally chosen by a grey plover."

Although Middendorff undoubtedly met with birds about to breed, and indeed extracted a partly developed egg from the oviduct of a female which he had shot on the Boganida River in latitude 74° N., no one had actually found the nest of this species till Mr. H. Leyborne Popham (1898) visited the lower reaches of the Yenesei in 1897. Two years previously (August, 1895), he had met with family parties on the delta and had shot young which must have been reared in the neighborhood. On July 3, 1897, finding the way below Golchika blocked by the ice, he turned back to explore an island of soft tundra with a rocky shore. One of his men called out that he had seen a sandpiper and at once, according to his own words:

I sent the other two men away and lay down to watch the bird, which
stood still for some time, then flew some distance away and I lost
sight of it among some turnstones. We again saw the bird near the
same spot, so Hansen and I lay down to watch while the mosquitoes
did their worst. The bird stood for some time watching us and then
began running about; it was very difficult to keep it in sight for
it took advantage of every little hollow to run in and every little
ridge to hide behind. It then flew to another place and did the
same thing again, so I asked Hansen to get up and walk away. The
bird remained quite motionless, watching him go, and then ran
backwards and forwards and finally stopped still behind a small
tuft of grass. After waiting for some minutes I raised my head
slightly; the bird instantly flew off and stood watching, but, as
it saw nothing moving, it began running about again and settled
down in the same spot; then I felt sure I had a nest safe, but to
make doubly sure I went through the same performance again, a
shower of rain no doubt hastening matters, and this time I
distinctly saw the bird shuffle the eggs under it. I jumped up,
shot the bird as it ran away, and soon had the pleasure of looking
at the first authentic eggs of the curlew sandpiper. The bird,
which proved to be the female, remained silent throughout; at one
time I thought I heard it make a sound like a dunlin, but, as I
afterwards saw dunlins close by, I was probably mistaken.

The next news comes from the Russian explorers who wintered on the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula in 1900-1901. In Doctor Walter's posthumous notes he writes that the curlew sandpiper nested in numbers near his winter quarters. The nests were placed in grassy places and by mid-June (old style) contained full clutches. On the approach of anyone the sitting birds, warned by their mates, left the nests quickly and both birds remained very passive and unobtrusive. Usually a long wait was necessary before the female returned to the nest, and often the watch resulted in failure. Some individuals also wander about in flocks through the breeding season, and later on young and old collect in large flocks and stay till late in the autumn. Doctor Walter collected three clutches of eggs here, and another Russian naturalist, Dr. Katin Jartzew, also took several on Kotelni Island, in the New Siberian Isles, in 1902. Since that date the only information we have received is that furnished by Miss Haviland (Mrs. Brindley), who visited the delta of the Yenesei in 1914. In her account (1915) of her travels she writes:

On July 6, as I was returning from a long round over the tundra
that lay in the northern angle of the Yenesei and Golchika Rivers,
all at once I saw a little rufous curlew, which was standing on a
tussock about 20 yards away, watching me quietly. When I stopped
she flew away, but soon alighted again and looked at me. Full of
excitement, but still rather skeptical as to the likelihood of
finding eggs, I lay down and watched her, but at the end of an hour
and a half I could come to no conclusion, for the bird only
strolled about and preened herself nonchalantly. I was not even
certain of her sex, and her solitude and her quiet behavior made me
doubt whether, after all, she might not be a nonbreeding bird.
Nevertheless, I marked the place and turned homeward, meaning to
come back next day. On the morrow I turned out early and tramped
over 8 swampy miles of tundra. The second pair of sandpipers were
not to be seen, but the first bird was still pottering round the
same spot. To-day she was a little more demonstrative and flew
about uneasily. Once she uttered a sharp, anxious note,
_wick-wick-wick_, two or three times repeated. By this time I was
convinced that the nest was close at hand, but it was difficult to
locate it, for although the bird could dodge me successfully enough
behind tussocks of moss only 6 inches high, my person unfortunately
was too bulky for these, the only available hiding places. The
ground was on a very gradual slope. On the right hand and on the
left were two small tarns, still covered with blue ice. In the
distance grazed some herds of reindeer, and once a Samoyede sledge
glided swiftly over a ridge. Heavy drifts of snow still lay in the
sheltered hollow, and the sleet showers that came slapping over the
tundra made me glad to wrap myself up in my Burberry coat.

The bird had whirled away round the tarn at my approach, so I hid myself as well as I could behind a tussock and settled down to wait for her return. Twenty minutes passed--half an hour. "It's time she was coming back," thought I, and turned my head carefully to reconnoiter. And lo and behold, not 30 yards behind, the sandpiper stood and studied me contemptuously! She had been watching all the time. "What a fool!" doubtless would have been her comment if she could have spoken. It is no use to try and gull the waders; up to a certain point I believe that they can almost see you _think_!

I retired abashed to another hiding place about 50 yards farther up the slope. The bird at once showed her appreciation of this move by flying toward the spot where I had first seen her. She was so small that it was very difficult to mark her as she tripped between the tussocks. When I thought that she must be settled on her eggs I jumped up quickly. She took wing at once, but when I went to the place whence she had risen there was no sign of the nest. This happened twice; but as she returned to the same spot each time, I knew that the treasure was there all right and that patience would win it. I marked the bird down by a dodge that I used when looking for gray plover's eggs under similar circumstances and which is described elsewhere; but each time that I flushed her she seemed to jump up from a different place. She was so little and so nimble that she could run over the moss for some yards before she was seen. The next time I gave her ample time to settle down and lay still in the wet, sucking lumps of sugar until I nearly fell asleep. Then all at once a Buffon's skua came overhead, flying low in the squally wind. I snatched my gun and shot him as he flew by, and as he fell I saw the sandpiper spring up from a spot where I had marked her once before. I left the skua and ran up to the place. The bird began to call again and drooped a wing to decoy me away. Half a minute's search and there was the nest at my feet.

_Eggs._--The clutch consists of four eggs normally, blunt pyriform in shape with slight gloss. Walter describes the ground as pale yellowish white with greenish tinge and large and small blackish-brown spots, more confluent at large end. There are also a few pale violet-gray shell marks. They are snipelike in character, and the markings are rich and handsome, sometimes ranging to deep rufous brown in color. Their small size, combined with bold type of markings, renders them readily recognizable. The measurements of 20 eggs average 36.26 by 25.67 millimeters, the eggs showing the four extremes measure =39.6= by 25.6, 37.5 by =26.4=, =33.3= by 25.3, and 36.6 by =25= millimeters.

_Incubation._--The bird which Popham shot from the eggs was a female, but both males and females were obtained from the nests by the Russian ornithologists, so that apparently the duty is shared by both sexes.

_Plumages._--The molts and plumages are fully described in "A Practical Handbook of British Birds," edited by H. F. Witherby (1920), to which the reader is referred.

_Food._--On its breeding grounds the main food of this species consists of insects. Cordeaux has found remains of Coleoptera and Diptera and their larvae in stomachs. Worms are also freely taken, but on migration it is a coastal species and subsists chiefly on marine forms, such as the small crustacea (Gammaridae) which are found in vast numbers on the shore, minute mollusca, and vegetable matter.

_Behavior._--Even in the breeding season this species shows signs of a sociable disposition, several pairs breeding frequently at no great distance apart. When the young are fledged they assemble in flocks before leaving for the south and during the winter months may be found on the mud flats of our estuaries and flat coasts, as well as occasionally on reservoirs and sewage farms inland. During the breeding season it appears to be a silent bird, only a shrill alarm note, _wick-wick-wick_, being noted, while the shore haunting flocks keep up a long twitter.

_Fall._--The migrations of this species are very extensive, reaching over practically the whole of the Old World. To the British Isles it is a passage migrant, arriving from the end of July to late October and occasionally November. In Denmark the old birds are said to arrive in August and the birds of the year in September, leaving in September-October. On the shores of the Baltic it occurs commonly, but seems to avoid the extreme west of Europe on its way south, though passing Tangier in September and occurring in small numbers in Portugal. It is also met with on passage in all the Mediterranean countries, as well as north Africa and passes the Canaries on migration. It ranges on the west side of Africa to Gaboon, Liberia, the Gold Coast, Princes Island, Loango, and south to Cape Province. While on the east side it is recorded from the Nile Valley, the Red Sea, Sudan, Mozambique, Zanzibar, Nyassaland, Madagascar, etc., and it occurs regularly on Mauritius. In Asia it ranges across the continent to the Indian Ocean, the Mekran coast, Sind, Yarkand, India, Ceylon, the Andamans Nicobars, Burmese coast, Malacca Peninsula, Hainan, Formosa, and East China. Further, it has been recorded from the Malay Archipelago, Java, Borneo, New Guinea, the Philippines, Moluccas, and has also been found in Australia (West Australia and New South Wales), Tasmania, and New Zealand. In America there are two Canadian records, one from Toronto and one from Nova Scotia; while in the Eastern States it has occurred in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Long Island, and has been recorded from Grenada and Carriacou, Lesser Antilles, and also in Patagonia. In Alaska it has once been obtained at Point Barrow.

DISTRIBUTION

_Breeding range._--The supposed instances of breeding in western Greenland are now discredited, and the only definitely known breeding places are in eastern Siberia, from the delta of the Yenesei to latitude 74° on the Taimyr Peninsula and northward, as well as on the Liakhof Isles and other islands of the New Siberian group.

_Spring migration._--Dates: Rio de Oro (N. W. Africa), April 27; Gibraltar, April 24; Egypt, May 8; Barcelona and Santander, May; Malaga, May 9; Corsica, May 7, 8, and 16; Italy, April 1-June 5: Malta, May 7, 12, 13, 27; Greece, April 15, 28, but chiefly May; Corfu, passage lasts till end of May; Transylvania, May 29; Cyprus, May 20, 24; Lake Baikal, May; Allaliabad, May 17; Amoy, China, May 16; Archangel, June 18; Boganida River, May 27; arrives North Taimyr, June 4.

_Fall migration._--Dates: Belfast, Ireland, August 25 to end of September; Portugal, September; Italy, September 15-October 30; Cyprus, September 2; Greece, arrives September; Tangier, September; Yarkand, August-September; Karachi, September; Gilgit, August-September; Selangor, August; Mergui Archipelago, November 6; Ceylon, October; Lower Pegu, August; Transvaal, November 24; Natal, October 18.

_Casual records._--Aldabra Island, Madagascar, November 6; Madeira, April 30, September 22 and October 7 and November 27. New Zealand, Canterbury, February 3, 1902; April 5, 1903 (2); Otago, March, 1903; Grenada (Wells); Bering Island (Steller). There are several records for this species for North America, some dating back to the earlier days of American ornithology. In some cases the details are indefinite and can not be considered as absolutely trustworthy. Among the occurrences recorded are: Lesser Antilles, Grenada (Cory, 1892), and Carriacou (Clark, 1905); New Jersey, Great Egg Harbor, two in the spring of 1829, Long Beach, Barnegat Bay, July 29, 1904, and Tuckerton and Cape May (Stone, according to C. C. Abbott, 1868); New York, nearly a dozen specimens at Fulton market secured on Long Island (Giraud, 1844), Long Island (?) June 9, 1891; Shinnecock Bay, May 24, 1883; Connecticut, near Hartford, October 3, 1859, New Haven, August 30, 1886, and June, 1874; Massachusetts, Cape Ann, fall of 1865, East Boston, early May, 1866, Nahant, about 1869, Ipswich, about 1875, Cape Cod, about May 10, 1878, and Chatham, August 26, 1889; Maine, Scarboro, September 9, 1875 (?), and Pine Point, September 15, 1881; New Brunswick, Grand Manan; Nova Scotia, Halifax, October, 1864, and September, 1868; Ontario, Toronto, about 1886 (Fleming); and Alaska, Point Barrow, June 6, 1883.

_Egg dates._--Full clutches on North Taimyr, June 24; Liakhof Isles, June 24; Taimyr, July 1 (incubated) and July 6 (fresh); Yenesei delta, July 3 and July 7.

EURYNORHYNCHUS PYGMEUS (Linnaeus)

SPOON-BILL SANDPIPER

HABITS

This unique little sandpiper has a very restricted breeding range in extreme northeastern Siberia, whence it migrates to southern Asia and wanders very rarely to extreme northwestern Alaska. Joseph Dixon (1918) says: "There are but three specimens claimed to have been taken in North America, as far as known to the author, with some doubt attached to the locality of capture of one of these." He has shown that the bird supposed to have been taken on the Choris Peninsula, Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, by Captain Moore, of the British ship "Plover," was really taken in northeastern Asia in 1849, and that no authentic record for North America has been established since that time until 1914. He says further:

The only well-established occurrence of the spoonbilled sandpiper
in America is that vouched for by Fred Granville, of Los Angeles,
California, who, on August 15, 1914, took two specimens at
Wainwright Inlet, on the Arctic coast of Alaska. One of these
specimens, a female, is now number 3552 in the collection of A. B.
Howell, of Covina, California, while the other, a male, is number
1698 in the collection of G. Willett, of Los Angeles.

Referring to the capture of these two birds, he quotes from Mr. Granville's letter of January 9, 1918, as follows:

On August 15, 1914, I and my assistant hiked back of Wainwright to
what I judged to be a distance of about 10 miles, traveling in a
northerly direction. The tundra where I found the spoonbills was
interlaced as far as the eye could see with little lagoons and long
channels of water, and in this territory I collected the two
spoonbills. These birds were shot out of a flock of possibly 10. I
followed them for about an hour before I could get a shot at them.
The birds would run along the tundra en masse and were undoubtedly
gleaning food from the moss. The minute they would catch sight of
me they would fly out of shotgun range. There were about six birds
that looked to me through field glasses to be in markedly different
plumage from the birds I shot. These six birds, immature as I
supposed, seemed to be of a solid color, and that a dark gray. On
the first shot fired, with which I got two, the birds flew across a
lake and I lost track of them, though I spent four or five hours
looking for some more. I believe that these birds breed in the
neighborhood of Wainwright and hope that at some close future date
some one will bear out my statement.

_Spring._--There is an adult male in nuptial plumage in the British Museum, which was taken at Shanghai, China, in April. The only other information we have about the spring migration is the following brief statement by Dr. E. W. Nelson (1883):

On the northeast coast of Siberia Nordenskiold records this bird as
occurring in such numbers that on two occasions in spring it was
served upon their mess table on board the "Vega" while they were
lying frozen in at their winter quarters. It arrived in spring at
Tapkau, with the first bare spots, early in June, and disappeared
in July. To the westward, in the same vicinity, during the summer
of 1881, I saw several of these birds, and at Plover Bay, on the
Bering Sea shore of the same coast, secured a fine adult female in
breeding plumage, taken on June 26. Nothing peculiar was observed
in its habits, and I approached the bird without difficulty or its
showing the slightest concern as it stood on the flat at that
place. The bird was first seen feeding in the shallow water at the
edge of a pool, and then stood with its head drawn back and without
paying the slightest attention to me until it was shot.

_Courtship._--Mr. Dixon (1918) has made a thorough study of this species and has given us a fine account of its interesting song flight, illustrated by a diagram, from which I quote, as follows:

The song and nuptial flight of the male spoonbill, attractive as
they were to the collector, in sight of such rare birds at last,
were as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp. In fact we were never able
to locate a female spoonbill on the nest, and I have always
believed that our lack of success in this regard was due to the
warning given by the male. Upon approaching the nest site, while we
were yet afar off, we were greeted by the male in full song. This
song, ventriloquial, pulsating, and cicadalike in quality, seemed
to come first from one and then from another point in the heaven
above. Sometimes we searched the sky altogether in vain, but
usually the bird was discovered in rapid flight at an altitude of
two or three hundred feet above the earth. The nuptial flight
consists of momentary poises alternating with rapid dips. When the
bird hovers or poises, the rapid beating of the wings is
accompanied by a fine, rhythmical, pulsating, buzzing trill,
_zee-e-e, zee-e-e, zee-e-e_, rapidly repeated. Following this the
bird approaches the intruder, swinging down in a sharp curve until
10 feet lower than the previous hovering point, where he again
poises on rapidly beating wings, pouring forth anew his insistent,
musical trill. After repeating this performance four or five times
the songster sweeps down in a long graceful curve until he almost
touches the earth near his brooding mate, then curving off, he
turns and rises rapidly and almost perpendicularly until almost out
of sight. From this new point of vantage the whole performance is
repeated. After four or five such excursions, in each of which the
intruder is approached from a different direction, the guardian of
the nest descends by raising his wings nearly vertically until they
form in anterior outline the letter V. The bird thus gliding on
motionless wings drops lightly but quickly to earth, uttering the
_zee-e-e_ in a richer yet more subdued tone. As soon as he touches
the earth the song ceases and the silent bird trots quietly off
over the moss, where his trim form blends with the lichen and mossy
tussocks, so that, upon remaining motionless, he disappears with
amazing rapidity. Time and time again we thus lost sight of the
birds, which we later discovered by the aid of binoculars to be
standing or squatting motionless within 50 feet of us. Although
this "fading out" method of exit is commonly employed by many shore
birds, in the case of the spoonbilled sandpiper it seems to have
been developed to an extreme degree.

_Nesting._--To F. E. Kleinschmidt is due the credit for finding the first nest of the spoonbill sandpiper near Cape Serdze, northeastern Siberia, on July 15, 1910. The nest and the four eggs, which were nearly hatched, are now in the collection of Col. John E. Thayer. The following extract from Captain Kleinschmidt's letter in regard to it was published by Colonel Thayer (1911):

I was in hopes that I could get five or six clutches of the
spoonbills, so I took all kinds of chances with my boat in the ice
on the Siberian coast. I found, however, but one set of eggs and
they were just ready to hatch. The male is the parent bird of the
eggs, but the female belongs to neither eggs nor downies, simply
because the habits of this sandpiper are similar to those of the
phalarope. The male has to stay at home, keep house, and attend to
the young, while the female thinks she has done all that is
necessary by merely fulfilling the duties nature demands of her,
namely, the laying of the eggs. I shot the female in close
proximity of the nest, but we never found a female with the
downies. It was always the male. Although our observations were
limited to but a few, still I believe the male solely attends to
the hatching and the rearing of the young. The female also is
larger than the male. The nest as well as the downies were found on
the gentle slope of the tundra, bordering small fresh-water ponds.
The nest was a rounded hollow in the moss, thickly lined with dry
willow leaves. The downies blend so perfectly with the color of the
moss that the closest scrutiny will scarcely reveal their hiding
place.

Mr. Dixon (1918) found a nest, with two fresh eggs, near Providence Bay, Siberia, on June 22, 1913, and one, with three young just hatched, near Cape Serdze, on July 17, 1913. Regarding his experience with it, he writes:

The two nests of this bird that came under the author's observation
were discovered through flushing the brooding male. The birds were
very shy, and as there was no cover other than a thin growth of
grass about 6 inches high approach by stealth was difficult. The
birds usually sneaked off while the observer was 40 or 50 yards
distant, and in order to find the nest it was necessary to hide, as
best one could, near the place where the sandpiper had flushed,
until it returned again to the nest. In one instance a depression
partly filled with water was the only available hiding place.
Fortunately for the watcher the water was not cold and the male
bird returned in 12 minutes to the nest, which contained two
_fresh_ eggs. The nest of this sandpiper was found to be merely a
cavity scratched out among the dead grass blades. It was a shallow
affair placed where the grass grew thickest. On June 22, 1913, at
Providence Bay, the writer witnessed the construction of a nest
from a distance of about 40 feet. The bird, a male, scratched and
then picked at the dead and matted grass blades and moss until he
had dug out quite a hole. Then he squatted down in the depression
and twisted about, pressing against the moss that formed the sides
of the nest, until a cavity about 3-1/2 inches in diameter and an
inch deep was formed. Dead leaves from a creeping Arctic willow
that grew in the moss near-by were used to line the nest.

There are two sets of eggs, one of three and one of two, in the United States National Museum, taken by Louis L. Lane, at Cape Serdze in June, 1912, but no further data came with them.

_Eggs._--The small sets referred to above were probably incomplete; doubtless four eggs is the normal set. The six eggs in the Thayer collection are subpyriform in shape and have a slight gloss. The ground color is uniform in all of them; it is between "cinnamon buff" and "dark olive buff," or a warm shade of the latter. Three eggs are finely speckled all over, only a little more thickly at the larger end, with light browns, "tawny" and "snuff brown"; one egg is heavily blotched at the larger end with "Verona brown" and "warm sepia," and only sparingly spotted elsewhere.

J. H. Riley tells me that the eggs taken by Louis Lane vary in ground color from a warm tint of "dark olive buff" to "deep olive buff." The set of two is rather evenly but not heavily marked over the surface with small blotches, dots, and scrawls of two shades of "bister," with a few shell markings of "drab" here and there over the surface. One egg of the set has the "bister" markings larger and thicker on the large end. The other set has the spots larger and heavier at the large end, and in two eggs they are darker, "clove brown" or even "blackish brown." The shape is subpyriform.

The measurements of these 11 eggs average 30.4 by 21.8 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =33= by 22.8, 30.5 by =23.3=, =28.7= by 20.8, and 29.3 by =20.3= millimeters.