164 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



where they seem to be gleaning food. Doctor Stejneger (1885) has 

 seen them " at low water eagerly picking up Gammarids among the 

 stones close to the breakers." Bernard J. Bretherton (1896) writes: 



Large flocks of these birds were seen during February, 1893, but were not 

 met with during other winters. They were met with on a low sand bar, 

 after a protracted storm which had thrown up millions of sand fleas, upon 

 which they were feeding so industriously as to be easily approached and to 

 which feast they returned several times, even after their ranks had been 

 thinned by raking charges of fine shot. 



Behavior. — In many ways the Aleutian sandpiper reminds one of 

 its near relative, the purple sandpiper, but it is even tamer, less 

 suspicious, and quieter in its movements. We had plenty of chances 

 to get acquainted with it in the Aleutian Islands. We met it, and 

 collected the first specimen of it, on the first island that we landed 

 on, Akun Island, and after that we saw it on every island we visited, 

 though it was much more abundant on the more western islands. These 

 bleak islands, with their forbidding, rocky shores and stony beaches, 

 washed with cold spray or enveloped in chilly fog, are the summer 

 home of this hardy little " beach snipe," as it is called by the natives. 

 It moves about so quietly and deliberately, and its colors match its 

 surroundings so well, that we were constantly coming upon it unex- 

 pectedly. It was usually so intent on feeding that it paid no 

 attention to passers-by; it was often necessary to back off to a rea- 

 sonable distance before shooting one, and I shot several with squib 

 charges in an auxiliary barrel. It is the tamest and most unsus- 

 picious shore bird I have ever seen. On this point Mr. Turner 

 (1886) says: 



It is not at all shy, depending more on its color to hide by squatting among 

 the crevices of the dark lava rocks and thus be unobserved. When cautiously 

 approached, these birds generally run to the highest part of the rock or bowlder 

 which they are on, then huddle together before taking flight the moment after. 

 This habit allows them to be nearly all killed at a single discharge of the gun. 

 The native boys, having observed this habit of these birds, procure a club about 

 two feet long, and when the birds huddle together before taking flight the 

 club is hurled in such manner as to sweep all the birds off the rock. This 

 manner of procuring these birds is practiced by the western Aleut boys to a 

 great degree. 



Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) writes: 



A pair were found feeding on a series of bare, jagged rocks, over which the 

 spray flew in a dense cloud as every wave beat at the foot of the rocky shore. 

 I shot one of them, and the survivor merely flew up and stood eyeing me 

 silently from the top of a low cliff 20 or 25 feet overhead until it, too, fell a 

 victim. Later in the day another was seen near the border of a small lake in 

 the interior of the island. It ran nimbly on before me, over the mossy hillocks, 

 stopping every few feet and half turning to watch my movements, just as a 

 spotted sandpiper would do under the circumstances. When driven to take 



