The Knot or Robin Snipe {THnga Camuus) 



By C. Hart Merriam 



The Knot or Robin Snipe is a bird of several names., as it is also called the 

 Red-breasted Ash-colored Sandpiper, the Gray-back and the Grap Snipe. It is 

 quite cosmopolitan, breeding in the far north of. both hemispheres, but in winter 

 migrating southward and wintering in the climate of the southern United States 

 and Central America. The Knot belongs to the Snipe family (Scolopacidae), 

 which includes one hundred or more species, about forty-five of which are inhabit- 

 ants of North America. Nearly all the species breed in the higher latitudes of the 

 northern hemisphere. These birds frequent the shores of large bodies of water 

 and are seldom observed far from their vicinity. Their bills are long and are 

 used in seeking food in the soft mud of the shore. 



The Knot visits the great lakes during its migrations and is frequently ob- 

 served at that time. Its food, which consists of the smaller crustaceans and shells, 

 can be as readily obtained on the shores of these lakes as on those of the ocean, 

 which it also follows. 



Dr. Ridgway tells us that "Adulty specimens vary individually in the relative 

 extent of the black, gray and reddish colors on the upper parts ; gray usually pre- 

 dominates in the spring, the black in midsummer. Sometimes there is no rufous 

 whatever on the upper surface. The cinnamon color of the. lower parts also 

 varies in intensity." 



Little is known of the nest and eggs of the Knot owing to its retiring habits at 

 the nesting time and the fact that it breeds in the region of the Arctic Circle, so 

 little frequented by man. One authentic report, that of Lieutenant A. W. Greely, 

 describes a single egg that he succeeded in obtaining near Fort Conger while 

 commanding an expedition to Lady Franklin Sound. This egg was a little more 

 than an inch in length and about one inch in diameter. Its color was a "light 

 pea-green, closely spotted with brown in small specks about the size of a pinhead." 



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