PfcCTORAX, SANDPIPER 175 



thighs are variegated with black, "chestnut," and "burnt sienna/' 

 and decorated with small dots of buffy white in an irregular pattern. 



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

 except that the feathers of the mantle, scapulars, and the median 

 and lesser wing coverts are edged with brighter colors, " tawny," 

 " ochraceous-buff," and creamy white; and the breast is more buffy 

 or yellowish. This plumage is apparently worn all through the fall 

 and winter or until the first prenuptial molt in February and March, 

 when the body plumage is renewed. At the first postnuptial molt, 

 the next summer, the young bird becomes indistinguishable from the 

 adult, having molted the entire plumage. 



Adults have a partial prenuptial molt in the spring, from Febru- 

 ary to June, which involves the body plumage, except the back and 

 rump and some of the scapulars, tertials, and wing coverts. The 

 complete postnuptial molt of adults is much prolonged; the body 

 molt begins in August, but the wings are not molted until the bird 

 reaches its winter home, beginning in October and often lasting until 

 February. Two adult females taken by Doctor Wetmore (1926) on 

 September 9 in Paraguay " were in worn breeding plumage with 

 no indication of molt." And one shot in Uruguay February 8 had 

 renewed all but a few feathers of the entire plumage, while a male 

 taken the same day was molting its primaries. There is very little 

 difference between the summer and winter plumages; the feather 

 edgings of the upper parts are more rufous in summer and more ashy 

 in winter. 



Food. — According to Preble and McAtee (1923), the contents of 

 21 well-filled gizzards of this species consisted principally of " flies 

 (Diptera), 54.5 per cent; amphipods, 22.3 per cent; vegetable mat- 

 ter, chiefly algae, 10.5 per cent; beetles, 8 per cent; Hymenoptera, 

 2.1 per cent; and bugs (Hemiptera), 1.3 per cent." Other things 

 eaten were mites, spiders, and caddis fly larvae and a few seeds of 

 grass, lupine, and violet. P. L. Hatch (1892) says that "their food 

 is principally crickets in spring, interlarded with various dry-land 

 larvae, small bettles, and ground worms. In the fall the grass- 

 hoppers are first chosen, after which crickets and whatever other 

 insects prevail at this season." Birds taken by B. S. Bowdish (1902) 

 in Porto Rico had eaten fiddler crabs. Pectoral sandpipers feed 

 mainly in grassy meadows, more or less dry, and their food is 

 chiefly insects. 



Behavior. — On the grassy salt meadows, where we usualty find it, 

 I have often been impressed with the resemblance of this sandpiper 

 and the Wilson snipe, both in appearance and in behavior. It i9 

 often found in wisps or scattered flocks, the individuals widely sep- 

 arated and crouching in the grass. Often it flushes close at hand 

 with a startling harsh cry and dashes hurriedly away with a zig-zag 



