LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER 117 



Nesting. — MacFarlane's notes record brief descriptions of some 

 half a dozen nests found in the Anderson River region and on the 

 borders of the wooded country. These were all located on marshy 

 ground near a swamp or small lake. One is described as " a mere 

 depression in the midst of a tuft or decayed grass, lined with a few 

 withered leaves." A set collected for me by F. S. Hersey, near St. 

 Michael, Alaska, June 9, 1914, was taken from a hollow in the moss 

 betweeen two clumps of grass on the tundra ; the female was flushed 

 and shot. Mr. Brandt says in his notes : 



The nest of the long-billed dowiteher is a mere depression scratched out 

 on a small eminence on a wet moss-covered meadow through which short 

 sedges grow sparingly to a height of about six inches. The nest, the bottom 

 of which was usually wet, was in every case surrounded by shallow fresh 

 water and the basinlike cavity was meagerly lined with grass and small leaves. 

 In two nests the eggs rested on the cold wet moss foundation still frozen a 

 few inches underneath and the scanty nesting material was all deposited on the 

 rim of the nest. In every instance the female was conducting the incubation, 

 but the male was in close attendance. The bird is a very close sitter and 

 must be almost trodden upon before it will rise, wings spread, from its duties. 



Eggs. — Four eggs seems to be the invariable rule for the long- 

 billed dowiteher. In shape they vary from ovate pyriform to sub- 

 pyriform; some are quite rounded and others are decidedly pointed. 

 They have only a slight gloss. Mr. Brandt in his notes describes his 

 four sets, as follows: 



The ground color has considerable variation and shows two distinct types: 

 The commoner one, the brown type, of which we found three sets is " Sac- 

 cardo's olive " ; and the other type, represented by a single set, is " greenish," 

 shading to " bluish glaucous." The markings are bold, slightly elongated and 

 seldom confluent, so that blotched markings are unusual. The eggs are medium 

 to heavily spotted, causing the ground color to be conspicuous, and, in con- 

 sequence, the underlying markings are very noticeable. The primary spots 

 are in various shades of brown, namely: "Vandyke brown," "seal brown," 

 and " Saccardo's umber," which make the egg one of unusual beauty. The 

 underlying spots are "drab gray" to "light grayish olive" and are larger 

 and more numerous than are found on the other limicoline eggs we collected 

 at Hooper Bay. 



In my set the ground colors vary from " dark olive buff " to " olive 

 buff." Two of the eggs are irregularly spotted and blotched with 

 spots of various sizes; one is quite evenly marked with small elon- 

 gated spots; and another is sparingly spotted and blotched, chiefly 

 about the larger end. The colors of the markings are "Saccardo's 

 umber," " bister " and " warm sepia," with underlying markings of 

 " deep " to " pale brownish drab." In other collections I have seen 

 a number of sets that matched almost exactly certain types of 

 heavily blotched eggs of the Wilson snipe ; these may be within the 

 normal range of dowitcher's eggs; but I have always been suspicious 

 that some of them were wrongly identified. The measurements of 

 54267—27 9 



