SCOLOPACIDJE: SANDPIPERS. 819 



wing-coverts ashy instead of pure white. Under parts everywhere thickly mottled with ashy 

 and dusky, deepest on breast and juguluni. Chicks in down are very pretty: grayisli-brown 

 mottled with black; back, wings, and rump spangled with white points; head grayish-white 

 tinged with fulvous, variously marked with black ; lores with two parallel black stripes ; below, 

 grayish-white. A species of circunipohir distribution, breeding and often wintering in high 

 latitudes; in eastern North America S. in winter to the Middle States, casually to Florida; 

 chiefly maritime, but also occurring on the Great Lakes and other inland waters ; it prefers 

 rocky shores covered with seaweed. Eggs 3 or 4, of usual pyriform shape, about 1.45 X 1-00, 

 <5lay color with olive shade, with large bold markings of rich umber-brown of varying sliade, 

 with neutral tint sliell-markiugs; markings over all the surface, but largest and most massed 

 at greater end. 



A. coues'i. (To E. Coues.) Aleutian Sandpiper. Coues' Sandpiper. Very near the 

 last. Following is the original description, in substance. Breeding dress, ^ 9 : Above fuli- 

 ginous-slate ; feathers of crown, back, and scapulars broadly edged with rusty-ochraceous, or 

 bright cinnamon, the central field of each feather nearly black, much darker than wings or 

 rump, some of the scapulars and interscapulars tipped with white in some specimens. Lesser 

 •coverts narrowly, greater coverts broadly, bordered terminally with white ; greater coverts 

 broadly tipped with white, forming a conspicuous cross-bar; several inner secondaries cliiefly 

 white; otliers, also inner primaries, narrowly skirted and tipped with white. Rump, upper 

 tail-coverts, and middle tail-feathers, uniform fuliginous dusky, other rectrices paler, or dull 

 cinereous. A conspicuous long wliitish superciliary stripe, reaching to uape, confluent with 

 whitish of under side of head, thus posteriorly bounding a large sooty-brown auricular area ; 

 .anterior portion of lores, and forehead, dull smoky-grayish; neck, jugulum, and breast dirty 

 whitish, sometimes soiled with dingy buff, and clouded or spotted with du'l slate, sooty-jdum- 

 beous, or dusky-blackisli, this sometimes forming a large patch on each side of breast. Other 

 under parts pure wliite, sides with a chain of slaty spots and streaks, crissum streaked with 

 dusky ; lining of wing pure white. IJill mostly blackish, lighter on basal third ; feet dark 

 greenish, drying blackish ; iris brown. Winter plumage : Above, soft smoky-plumbeous, 

 scapulars and interscapulars glossy purplish-dusky centrally, the plumbeous borders of the 

 feathers causing a squamous appearance; he<id and neck uniform plumbeous, excepting throat 

 and a supra-loral patch, which are streaked whitish ; jugulum squamated witli wiiite, breast 

 similarly, but more broadly marked. Wing, tail, and rump, as in summer. Young, first 

 plumage : Scapulars and interscapulars black, broadly bordered with bright rusty and bufly- 

 white, the latter chiefly on longer outer scapulars and lower back ; wing-coverts broadly bor- 

 dered with huffy-white; pileum streaked black and ochrey; juguium and breast pale buff, or 

 buffy-white, streaked with dusky. Downy young: Above, briglit rusty-fulvous, irregularly 

 mottled with black ; back, wings, and rump flecked with yellowish-wliife papilht ; Jiead above 

 deep fulvous-brown, striped with velvety black from forehead to occiput, where contlueut with 

 a cross-bar of the same ; lores with two parallel stripes of same. Lower parts white, distiuctly 

 fulvous on sides. Length 8.00-9.00; extent 15. 00-10.00; wing 4.50-5.15, average 4.8(3; tail 

 2.10-2.35; cuhnen 0.98-1.25; average 1.13; tarsus 0.88-1.00, average 0.95; middle too with- 

 out claw 0.78-0.90, average 0.8(5. Eggs 1.45 X I0(), indistinguishable from those of A. mari- 

 ■tima, laid in May and June. Commander Islands, Aleutian Islands, and coast of Alaska, all 

 the year round; extent of migratiiais unknown, if any. Hest biography in Nelson's Alaska, 

 1887, p. 103, with cidored jd. (5. 



A. ptilocne'mis. (Gr. nriKnv, ptilon, a feather: KiTjfjiii, knrmis, a prcavo; the crus being 

 feathered.) PuvmL'>F Saxupiper. Elmott'.s Sa.nkpipeu. Rla('K-hrea.stei> Sasd- 

 PIPEH. Adult (J 9 in breedini,' ilre.ss : With somewhat the .ippearanct- of a sunnner 7V/i»/h<i 

 al])iiiit, l)ut the black area jjectoral, not abdominal. Crown, interscapulars, and soapnlars 

 black, completely variegated with rich chestnut, ochrey, and wliitisli. the Ixnly i.f each feather 



