CURLEW SANDPIPER 237 



C. Abbott, 1868) ; New York, nearly a dozen specimens at Fulton 

 market secured on Long Island (Giraud, 1844), Long Island (?) 

 June 9, 1891; Shinnecock Bay, May 24, 1883; Connecticut, near 

 Hartford, October 3, 1859, New Haven, August 30, 188G, and June, 

 1874; Massachusetts, Cape Ann, fall of 1865, East Boston, early 

 May, 1866, Nahant, about 1869, Ipswich, about 1875, Cape Cod, about 

 May 10, 1878, and Chatham, August 26, 1889; Maine, Scarboro, 

 September 9, 1875 ( ? ) , and Pine Point, September 15, 1881 ; New 

 Brunswick, Grand Manan ; Nova Scotia, Halifax, October, 18G4, and 

 September, 1868; Ontario, Toronto, about 1886 (Fleming); and 

 Alaska, Point Barrow, June 6, 1883. 



Egg dates. — Full clutches on North Taimyr, June 24; Liakhof 

 Isles, June 24; Taimyr, July 1 (incubated) and July 6 (fresh) ; 

 Yenesei delta, July 3 and July 7. 



EURYNORHYNCHUS PYGMEUS (Linnaeus) 

 SPOON-BILL SANDPIPER 



HABITS 



This unique little sandpiper has a very restricted breeding range 

 m extreme northeastern Siberia, whence it migrates to southern 

 Asia and wanders very rarely to extreme northwestern Alaska. 

 Joseph Dixon (1918) sa}^s : "There are but three specimens claimed 

 to have been taken in North America, as far as known to the author, 

 with some doubt attached to the locality of capture of one of these." 

 He has shown that the bird supposed to have been taken on the 

 Choris Peninsula, Kotzcbue Sound, Alaska, by Captain Moore, of 

 the British ship "Plover," was really taken in northeastern Asia in 

 1849, and that no authentic record for North America has been 

 established since that time until 1914. He says further : 



The only well-established occurrence of the spoon-billed sandpiper in America 

 is that vouched for by Fred Granville, of Los Angeles, California, who. on 

 August 15, 1914, took two specimens at Wainwright Inlet, on the Arctic coast 

 of Alaska. One of these specimens, a female, is now number 3352 in the collec- 

 tion of A. B. Howell, of Covina, California, while the other, a male, is number 

 1G0S in the collection of G. Willett, of Los Angeles. 



Referring to the capture of these two birds, he quotes from Mr. 

 Granville's letter of January 9, 1918, as follows : 



On August 15, 1914, I and my assistant hiked back of Wainwright to what 

 I judged to be a distance of about 10 miles, traveling in a northerly direction. 

 The tundra where I found the spoonbills was interlaced as far as the eye 

 could see with little lagoons and long channels of water, and in this territory 

 I collected the two spoonbills. These birds were shot out of a flock of possibly 

 10. I followed them for about an hour before I could get a shot at them. 

 The birds would run along the tundra en masse and were undoubtedly glean- 

 ing food from the moss. The minute they would catch sight of me they 



