128 NOTES ON THE 



' ' they were very tame and could be shot at again and again, 

 returning to the same place, and walking unconcernedly about 

 on the mud among their dead and dying comrades, perfectly 

 oblivious in their search for food, of the author of so much 

 destruction." And I could add similar reports from other 

 localities if they were needed. The flocks increase in size until 

 they are driven away by the cold, but they never assume the 

 proportions which they do on the sea coast. The above was 

 written in 1880, since which the bird, eggs and nest have been 

 added to my personal collections, and obtained by several col- 

 lectors. The nest is located on dry knolls, or sand dunes near 

 the shore of a pond, and consists of a hollow in the friable 

 soil, into which is placed a moderate quantity of dried grass. 

 There are four pretty, creamy eggs, dotted and blotched with 

 dark-brown more pronounced near the larger end. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



The smallest of all known species of this group found in 

 North America; bill about as long as the head, slightlj" curved 

 towards the end, which is verj^ slightly expanded; grooves in 

 both mandibles to near the tip; wing long; tertiaries nearly as 

 long as the primaries; tail short, middle feathers longest, 

 outer feathers frequently longer than the intermediate; legs 

 long; lower third of the tibia naked; toes long, slender, mar- 

 gined, and flattened beneath; hind toe small; upper parts with 

 nearly every feather having a large central spot of brownish- 

 black, and widely margined with ashy and bright brownish-red; 

 rump and middle of the upjier tail coverts, black; outer cpverts 

 white, spotted with black; stripe over the eye, throat, and 

 breast. i)ale ashy-white, with numerous small longitudinal spots 

 of ashy-brown; abdomen and under tail coverts, white; quills, 

 dark brown, with the shafts of the primaries white; tertiaries 

 edged with reddish; middle feathers of the tail, brownish-black; 

 outer feathers light ashy- white; uuder surface of wing, light 

 brownish-ashy, with a large spot of white near the shoulder; 

 axillary feathers, white; bill and legs, greenish-brown, the 

 latter frequently yellowish-green. 



Length, 5.50 to 6; wing, 3.50 to 3.75; tail, 1.75; bill to gape, 

 0.75; tarsus, 0.75. 



Habitat, North and South America. 



EREINETES PISILLUS (L.). (246.) 



SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER. 



A regular migrant, reaching the section where I reside about 

 the 25th of April, intimately associated with the Least Sandpip- 

 ers, they remiin about the smaller lakes and ponds for a short 

 time, and disappear so much like that species after three or 



