148 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Eggs. — A very good description of the eggs is given by Seebohm 

 (1884) as follows: 



The eggs of the purple sandpiper are four in number and remarkably 

 handsome. They vary in ground color from pale olive to pale buffish brown, 

 boldly mottled, blotched, and streaked with reddish brown and very dark 

 blackish brown. On some eggs the blotches are large, and chiefly distributed 

 in an oblique direction round the large end ; on others they are more evenly 

 distributed over the entire surface ; and on many a few very dark scratches, 

 spots, or streaks are scattered here and there amongst the brown markings. 

 The underlying markings are numerous and conspicuous, and are pale violet 

 gray or grayish brown in color. 



Frank Poyn ting's (1895) colored plate of 12 selected eggs well 

 illustrates the great variation in the beautiful eggs of this species. 

 There are two distinct types of ground color, green and buff. In 

 the green types the colors vary from "yellowish glaucous" to a 

 light shade of " grape green " ; and in the buff types from " cream 

 buff " to " dark olive buff." They are sometimes evenly, but more 

 often irregularly, spotted and blotched with various shades of brown, 

 " sepia," " bister," and " snuff brown," sometimes boldly marked with 

 " chocolate " and " burnt umber " and sometimes with great splashes 

 of " vinaceous brown " overlaid with blotches of " chestnut brown " 

 and "bay," a handsome combination. The measurements of 100 

 eggs, supplied by Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, average 37.3 by 28.5 

 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 40 by 28, 

 35.1 by 26.6 and 37.3 by 24.8 millimeters. 



Plumages. — The nestling is described in Witherby's Handbook 

 (1920) as follows: 



Fore part of crown warm buff; black-brown median line from base of upper 

 mandible to crown ; crown and upper parts velvety black-brown, down with 

 numerous cream and warm buff tips ; nape light buff, down with sooty-brown 

 bases ; from base of upper mandible above eye to nape a black-brown streak, 

 another short one from base of lower mandible, ear coverts as crown ; cheeks 

 warm or light buff, down with black-brown tips ; remaining under parts grayish 

 white, down sooty brown toward base. 



The juvenal plumage is much like that of the summer adult, 

 except that the feathers of the crown are tipped with creamy white, 

 as are also the central tail feathers; the feathers of the mantle and 

 scapulars are edged with buffy white; and the wing coverts and ter- 

 tials are broadly edged with the same color or tipped with pale 

 pinkish buff. The juvenal body plumage is usually molted before 

 the birds reach us on migration, when young birds, in first winter 

 plumage, can be recognized by the broad white edgings of the median 

 coverts and by a few retained scapulars and tertials. Some of these 

 juvenal feathers are retained through the next, the partial prenuptial 

 molt. Subsequent molts and plumages are as in the adult. 



