38 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Courtship. — Prof. Julian S. Huxley (1925), who has made a 

 study of the European species, says: 



The avocet has no courtship. There are no songs or aerial displays ; no 

 posturing by the male ; no mutual ceremonies ; no special courtship notes. 

 There is some hostility and fighting ; a peculiar action by the female which 

 is a symbol of readiness to pair, followed by an excited action on the part 

 of the male ; and a special post-paring action by both birds ; but of courtship 

 in any accepted sense none whatever. 



However that may be, our bird does indulge in actions and pos- 

 turings which look very much like courtship. On May 29, 1905, 

 we spent some time in watching the avocets in a colony on an alkali 

 flat covered with a sparse growth of short, curly grass, near Hay 

 Lake in southwestern Saskatchewan. We could not find any nests 

 there at that time and concluded that the birds had not laid. They 

 were apparently still conducting their courtships, wading about 

 gracefully in the shallow water, frequently bowing or crouching 

 down close to the water; sometimes they danced about with wings 

 widespread, tipping from side to side like a balancing tight-rope 

 walker; occasionally one, perhaps a female in an attitude of invi- 

 tation, would lie prostrate on the ground or water for a minute or 

 more, with the head and neck extended and wings outstretched. 

 Frequently they fooled us by squatting down on the ground, as if 

 sitting on a nest; if we went to investigate, they would run away 

 and repeat the act elsewhere ; perhaps this act carried the suggestion 

 of mating as a part of the courtship ceremony. 



Nesting. — We found no large breeding colonies in Saskatchewan 

 but several small ones. The Hay Lake colony referred to above 

 was perhaps the largest, containing 15 or 20 pairs. The nests, found 

 here on June 15, were merely slight hollows in the sun-baked mud 

 on the broad alkali flats bordering the shallow lake ; they were scat- 

 tered widely among the little tufts of short grass which scantily 

 covered the flat ; the hollows measured from 3 to 4 inches in diameter 

 and were lined with a few dry grasses. Some of the nests were 

 well formed and somewhat elevated. Although in plain sight, the 

 eggs were not easy to find, as they matched their surroundings 

 perfectly. 



On June 14, 1906, we found an interesting little colony of avocets 

 on an island in Big Stick Lake, Saskatchewan, which was also occu- 

 pied by big colonies of California and ring-billed gulls, common 

 terns, a few spotted sandpipers, and a few pairs of ducks. The 

 avocets, terns, and sandpipers were all at one end of the island, a 

 low grassy point ; the ring-billed gulls and ducks were in the central, 

 highest part; and the California gull colony was at the other end. 

 The avocets' nests, ten or a dozen of them, were placed in the short 

 grass near the edge of the beach or on the drift weed lying in wind- 



