RED-BACKED SANDPIPER 223 



Nesting. — The same observer says of the nest : 



The home of the red-backed sandpiper is almost always found on a dry 

 eminence in the widespread grassy tidelands, where, near some pool under 

 the damp matted vegetation of the previous year, sufficient concealment is 

 afforded. Here in a mere depression in the ground, still frozen underneath, 

 a fragile nest is hurriedly made of dry grass stems and filled, rather than 

 lined, with the tiny crisp leaves of the berry-bearing plants, that are deposited 

 by the flood tides of autumn in this area. The range of measurements of 25 

 nests is : Inside diameter, Z\'-i to 4 inches ; inside depth 2 to 3 inches ; total 

 depth, 3 to 5 inches. 



This sandpiper is among the early nesters, we having taken the first com- 

 pleted set of eggs on May 29, while by June 1 we had discovered 75. The 

 middle of June found the downy young bursting forth, dainty creatures clad 

 in black and brown with markings similar to those of the other sandpiper 

 chicks. 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1900) found this species breeding on the 

 Arctic coast of Alaska, about 20 miles northeast of Cape Prince of 

 Wales, on June 27 and 28 ; he writes : 



The birds were found scattered out on the tundras whence they could be 

 flushed from their nests or from where they had been feeding. One nest was 

 a cup-shaped cavity slightly lined with grasses and sunk into the top of a 

 hummock of moss surrounded by marshy ground. The two others found 

 were similarly located except that they were embedded in clumps of grass, 

 and mostly hidden from view by the surrounding blades. Each nest con- 

 tained four eggs. One was fresh but the other two were considerably incubated. 



Prof. Wells W. Cooke (1912) made the statement that this species 

 has two breeding areas " separated by nearly 1,500 miles of Arctic 

 coast, from Point Barrow to the Boothia Peninsula," where "there 

 seems to be no certain record of the occurrence of the red-backed 

 sandpiper." This is far from true, for it is well known to breed 

 there and eggs have been taken at many places along the Arctic 

 coast. 



Eggs. — Herbert W. Brandt (Mss.) describes his series of 120 eggs 

 of this sandpiper very well, as follows: 



The four eggs of the red-backed sandpiper, which is their complement, are 

 very handsome and show more variation than the eggs of most of the other 

 shore birds breeding in the Hooper Hay region. In shape they are sub- 

 pyriform to ovate pyriform and rest amid the leafy nest lining with the small 

 ends together often so placed that the sitting bird during incubation touches 

 only the larger ends. The shell is not as strong as many shore-bird eggs of 

 the same size but they are not fragile by any means and they have con- 

 siderable luster. As was true of many of the limicoline eggs found along that 

 Bering Sea coast, (here were two general types of ground color — the one, the 

 greenish, that predominated by a ratio of about 15 to 1 — and the other was 

 the brownish type. The ground color ranges from " pale glaucous green " — 

 that is the most common type — to " glaucous green," while the brownish-tinged 

 eggs shade from " olive buff " to " dark olive buff." The surface markings are 

 conspicuous and vary greatly, for on some types the spots are small and well 

 scattered over the eggs ; on others they are large, irregular, and bold ; while 

 on still other specimens they are confluent on the larger end and form a blotch 



