NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 121 



that a sportsman brought me a male bird on the 28th of June, 1886. 

 This season (June 14, 1888) Mr. Robert Hedden shot a specimen, 

 which proved to be a female, the skin of which is now in my cabinet. 

 From this bird I took a well-formed egg, and the ovaries contained 

 several others in different stages of development. The breast of 

 this specimen was quite bare of feathers, indicating that it was 

 engaged in the duties of incubation. The bird was sitting on the top 

 rail of a fence when killed, and no others were noticed in the vicinity. 

 The eggs of the Yellow-legs are of a light drab, or even vary to clay, 

 buffy or cream color, sometimes light brown ; the markings are bold 

 and heavy, with great diversity of heavily splashed blotches of choco- 

 late, umber-brown and blackish, these being chiefly at the larger end, 

 and sometimes confluent. Paler shell-markings are also numerous 

 and noticeable ; pointedly pyriform in shape ; three or four in number ; 

 sizes range from 1.58 to 1.78 long by about 1.16 broad. 



256. Totanus solitarius (WILS.) [55-] 



Solitary Sandpiper 



Hab. North America, breeding in Northern United States, northward; migrating southward to 

 Northern South America. 



The Solitary Tattler, or the American Green Sandpiper is found 

 throughout the entire North America; breeds in Northern United 

 States and northward, and probably throughout most of its United 

 States range. Winters chiefly in Mexico, Central and South America 

 and in the West Indies. It has the same characteristic habits of the 

 Green Sandpiper of Europe always seen near water, during the mi- 

 grations, on the borders of lakes, ponds and rivers, or seeking its food, 

 which consists chiefly of worms in the soft loamy soil of marshes. 

 The Solitary Sandpiper is well named, when its personal habits or the 

 localities which it frequents are considered. It is found, except dur- 

 ing and shortly after the breeding season, about small ponds in woods, 

 remote shaded ditches or small brooks, just such localities as are fre- 

 quented by the Water Thrush, and its alarm note is very similar to 

 that species, but is shriller and louder and is sounded while on the wing 

 in its rapid flight. Although common, the eggs of this species have 

 been until a comparatively recent date of special desideratum, and 

 only a few specimens are as yet to be found in the numerous collec- 

 tions. In the last edition of this work I mentioned an egg supposed to 

 belong to this species, which I took in an open field bordering the Sci- 

 oto River, near Columbus, Ohio, in the latter part of May, 1877. This 

 specimen was first described by the late Dr. J. M. Wheaton.* The egg 



^In his Report on the Birds of Ohio. Vol. IV., Ohio Geological Survey, entitled Zoology and Botany, 

 p. 486. 



