PECTORAL SANDPIPER 171 



and breast becomes very flabby and loose at this season, and its inner surface 

 is covered with small globular masses of fat. When not inflated, the skin 

 loaded with this extra weight and with a slightly serous suffusion which is 

 present hangs down in a pendulous flap or fold exactly like a dewlap, about an 

 inch and a half wide. The esophagus is very loose and becomes remarkably 

 soft and distensible, but is easily ruptured in this state, as I found by dissec- 

 tion. In the plate accompanying this report the extent and character of this 

 inflation, unique at least among American waders, is shown. The bird may 

 frequently be seen running along the ground close to the female, its enormous 

 sae inflated, and its head drawn back and the bill pointing directly forward, 

 or, filled with spring-time vigor, the bird flits with slow but energetic wing- 

 strokes close along the ground, its head raised high over the shoulders and the 

 tail hanging almost directly down. As it thus flies it utters a succession of the 

 hollow, booming notes, which have a strange ventriloquial quality. At times 

 the male rises 20 or 30 yards in the air and inflating its throat glides down to 

 the ground with its sac hanging below, as is shown in the accompanying plate. 

 Again he crosses back and forth in front of the female, puffing his breast out 

 and bowing from side to side, running here and there, as if intoxicated with 

 passion. Whenever he pursues his love-making, his rather low but pervading 

 note swells and dies in musical cadences, which form a striking part of the 

 great bird chorus heard at this season in the north. 



Mr. Conover (notes) adds the following: 



When the male rises in the air to boom, in sailing to the ground he throws 

 his wings up over his back, much in the same manner as tame pigeons when 

 descending from a height; also a male which flew by with pouch extended was 

 noticed to jerk his head up and down as he gave his call. The bill was partly 

 open and he gave the appearance of swallowing air to inflate his throat. As 

 it is the esophagus which is inflated and not the windpipe, this in all proba- 

 bility is what he does. 



S. A. Buturlin (1907) gives a somewhat different account of it, as 

 observed by him in Siberia, as follows: 



One would every now and then stretch both wings right over its back, and 

 afterwards commence a grotesque sort of dance, hopping alternately on each 

 leg; another would inflate its guiar pouch and run about, crouching down 

 to the ground, or would fly up to about a hundred feet in the air, then inflate 

 its pouch and descend slowly and obliquely to the ground on extended wings. 

 All these performances were accompanied by a strange hollow sound, not very 

 loud when near, but audible at some distance, even as far as 500 yards. These 

 notes are very difficult to locate, and vary according to the distance. When 

 near they are tremulous booming sounds something like the notes of a frog, 

 and end in clear sounds like those caused by the bursting of water bubbles 

 in a copper vessel. 



Nesting.— Mr. Murdoch (1885) says: 



The nest is always built in the grass, with a decided preference for high 

 and dry localities like the banks of gulleys and streams. It was sometimes 

 placed at the edge of a small pool, but always in grass and in a dry place, 

 never in the black clay and moss, like the plover and buff-breasted sandpipers, 

 or in the marsh, like the phalaropes. The nest was like that of the other 

 waders, a depression in the ground lined with a little dry grass. 



