216 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



With nay glasses I watched a pair of little pink-necked sandpipers as they 

 worked around the grass at the foot of the hill. The male would give up his 

 searching among the dried grass stalks to demonstrate his love for his little 

 partner, upon which she would take to wing and circle about. Finally she 

 entered a little tussock of grass, standing on her " nose " fluttering her 

 tail and wings. Soon the male pushed his way inside, too, and after a few 

 more rustling about, they took to wing. I looked in the grass and found a 

 little cavity which they were just lining with leaves. Upon examining their 

 nesting clump, I found a small pit, exactly similar to the nest of the western 

 sandpiper, in which they had deposited about 20 small willow leaves. I marked 

 the spot carefully, but upon my return found the nest abandoned. 



W. Sprague Brooks (1915) found a few pairs breeding at the 

 head of Providence Bay, northeastern Siberia ; he writes : 



Two sets of fresh eggs, numbering three and four, respectively, were taken 

 on June 11, 1913 ; the male incubating one and the female the other. Both 

 birds when disturbed fluttered off the nest like other sandpipers. The nests 

 were cavities on small mounds of tundra lined with dry willow leaves. 



Eggs. — I have been unable to locate any eggs of the rufous-necked 

 sandpiper and do not know what became of the two sets referred 

 to above. Joseph Dixon (1918) implies that the eggs resemble those 

 of the spoonbill sandpiper. 



Plwmag&s. — In the downy young the crown and upper parts are 

 variegated with black, " tawny " and " warm buff " ; the forehead, 

 superciliary stripe and sides of the head and neck are " warm buff " ; 

 the under parts are white, washed on the breast with pale buff ; a nar- 

 row median stripe on the forehead and a broader loral stripe are 

 black. The specimen described above was taken at Cape Serdze, 

 Siberia, on July 16, and shows the beginning of the juvenal plumage: 

 the back and scapulars are well covered with young feathers and the 

 wings are well started, though the bird is still very small and mostly 

 downy. The feathers of the back and scapulars are black, broadly 

 edged with " hazel," and the scapulars are tipped with white. 



Older young and subsequent plumages are well described by Robert 

 Ridgway (1919). The molts are apparently similar to those of other 

 species in the genus. The postnuptial molt of the body plumage 

 occurs mainly in August and the wings and tail are molted in Janu- 

 ary and February. I have seen birds in winter plumage as early as 

 August 13 and as late as March 15. Probably the prenuptial molt 

 of the body plumage takes place in April. In fresh nuptial plumage 

 the bright colors of the upper parts are veiled with " drab-gray " 

 tips, which soon wear away. There is much individual variation in 

 the amount of rufous on the head, neck, and breast. Mr. Dixon 

 (1918) says that in this plumage the rufous-necked sandpiper looks 

 very much like the spoonbill sandpiper; and, as its behavior is simi- 

 lar, it might easily be mistaken for it. 



