BAIRD SANDPIPER 197 



below it and parallel to it; there is a white superciliary stripe and 

 some white mottling on the back of the head and neck. 



The juvenal plumage is equally concealing. The crown is sepia 

 with buffy edgings; the back and scapulars are dark sepia with 

 broad white edgings; the wing is like the adult except that the coverts 

 and tertials are edged with "pinkish buff" and tipped with white; 

 the under parts are like the adult but the breast is more pinkish buff 

 and more faintly streaked. A partial post juvenal molt, including 

 most of the body plumage and some of the scapulars, wing coverts, 

 and tertials and takes place in October or later. I have seen birds in 

 full juvenal plumage as late as October 3; young birds migrate in 

 this plumage. At the first prenuptial molt the following spring 

 young birds become indistinguishable from adults. 



Adults have a partial prenuptial molt in April and May, including 

 only part of the body plumage. The postnuptial molt begins in 

 July, when the bod} 7 plumage is molted before the birds migrate ; the 

 wings are molted after the birds reach their winter home, from 

 December to February, not long before they started to migrate north 

 again. I have seen birds in full nuptial plumage as early as May 1 

 and as late as July 29, and in full winter plumage as late as April 

 5. The adult nuptial and winter plumages are somewhat different; 

 the colors are brighter and richer in the spring and the markings are 

 more distinct ; in the fall the upper parts are nearly uniformly buffy 

 brownish with dusky shaft streaks ; the chest and sides of the breast 

 are dull brownish buff and not distinctly streaked. 



Food. — Preble and McAtee (1923) found in the stomachs of three 

 Baird sandpipers, taken on the Pribilof Islands, amphipods, algae, 

 ground beetles, and a weevil. Mr. McAtee (1911) includes this 

 species among those that eat mosquito larvae, crane-fly larvae, grass- 

 hoppers, and the clover-root curculio, all injurious insects. It feeds 

 on the open mud flats with other species of sandpipers, but seems to 

 prefer to feed about the edges of the shallow inland pools or where 

 the muddy flats are partially overgrown with grass. William Brew- 

 ster (1925) watched some of them feeding, of which he says: 



On first noticing mo draw near they stood erect, with upstretched neck-, 

 regarding me intently and distrustfully, hut their feeding operations were 

 resumed soon after I ceased to advance. By successive runs, 8 or 10 feet in 

 length and often executed very swiftly, they moved ahout quickly in various 

 directions over soft mud or through shallow water, frequently stooping to pick 

 up small morsels of food, but not once using their bills for probing under 

 ground or water. 



Voice. — Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1905) says that the note, which 

 he heard several times, seemed to him " exactly like that of the 

 semipalmated sandpiper, a rather shrill, trilling whistle." Mr. 

 Brewster (1925) says that — 

 54267—27 14 



