186 ALASKA. 



flight b\' the 1st or otb of September, and disappear until the 

 opening of the new season. 



"It is a most devoted and fearless parent, and will flutter in 

 feigned distress around by the hour, uttering a low piping note 

 should one approach its nest. It also makes a sound exactly like 

 our tree-frogs, and until I had traced the matter to this source^ 

 I searched several weeks unavailingly for the presence of these 

 reptiles, misled by the call of this bird." 



A set of four eggs of this species, the full complement, taken 

 by Mr. Elliott,* June 10, 1873, on Saint George's, are perhaps 

 the first specimens which have reached naturalists; certainly 

 the first we have had in this country. They appear to have 

 been nearly or quite fresh at the date mentioned. The egg is- 

 rather a pecnliar one 5 of all the sandpipers eggs before us, it 

 most resembles that of Tringa mariiima. The shape is regu- 

 larly pyriform, as usual in this family. Measurements of the 

 four examples are: 1.55 x 1.08; 1.52 x 1.05; 1.50 x 1.08; 1.48 x 

 1.05. The ground is nearly clay-color, but with an appreciable 

 olivaceous shade; the markings are large, bold, and numerous, 

 of rich, burnt-umber brown, of varying depth, according to the 

 quantity of the pigment. These surface-markings occur all 

 over the shell, except the extreme point, and are solidly massed 

 by confluence on the larger half of the egg-, all the markings are 

 strong, as if laid on freely with a heavily-charged brush. With 

 these surface-spots occur numerous shell-markings of the same 

 character, but, of course, obscure, presenting a stone-gray or 

 purplish gray shade ; some of them look as if the color of the 

 surface-spots had '^ run*' and scaked into the olivaceous drab of 

 the general surface. 



* The eggs were first discovered by Mr. George U. Adams, ageui of the Alaska 

 Commercial Company, Saint George's Island. He, in order that they should 

 be identilied, uotilied Mr. Elliott of their position, who immediately shot the 

 parent and secured the eggs. Mr. Elliott has had frequent occasion to ac- 

 knowledge the courtesy and facilities for natural-history work furnished by 

 the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company on both islands, Dr. H. H. 

 Mclutyro and Mr. Adams, above mentioned. To tlie last-named gentleman 

 he is especially indebted for many desiderata. Mr. Samuel Falconer, assist- 

 ant agent, and Drs. Otto Cramer and Meany, physicians on the two islands^ 

 are also among the few to whom Mr. Elliott's grateful obligations are due. 

 From Dr. Cramer we have reason to anticipate a very valuable and interest- 

 ing paper upon the stomach and intestinal parasites of the fur-seal, which he 

 was engaged upon when Mr. Elliott took his departure from the islands, 

 August 10, 187:3. 



