240 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



distance of about 40 feet. The bird, a male, scratched and then picked at the 

 dead and matted grass blades and moss until he had dug out quite a hole. 

 Then he squatted down in the depression and twisted about, pressing against 

 the moss that formed the sides of the nest, until a cavity about 3% inches in 

 diameter and an inch deep was formed. Dead leaves from a creeping Arctic 

 willow that grew in the moss nearby were used to line the nest. 



There are two sets of eggs, one of three and one of two, in the 

 United States National Museum, taken by Louis L. Lane, at Cape 

 Serdze in June, 1912, but no further data came with them. 



Eggs. — The small sets referred to above were probably incomplete ; 

 doubtless four eggs is the normal set. The six eggs in the Thayer 

 collection are subpyriform in shape and have a slight gloss. The 

 ground color is uniform in all of them ; it is between " cinnamon 

 buff " and " dark olive buff," or a warm shade of the latter. Three 

 eggs are finely speckled all over, only a little more thickly at the 

 larger end, with light browns, " tawny " and " snuff brown " ; one 

 egg is heavily blotched at the larger end with " Verona brown " and 

 ''warm sepia," and only sparingly spotted elsewhere. 



J. H. Riley tells me that the eggs taken by Louis Lane vary 

 in ground color from a warm tint of " dark olive buff " to " deep olive 

 buff." The set of two is rather evenly but not heavily marked over 

 the surface with small blotches, dots, and scrawls of two shades of 

 " bister," with a f ew shell markings of " drab " here and there over 

 the surface. One egg of the set has the " bister " markings larger and 

 thicker on the large end. The other set has the spots larger and 

 heavier at the large end, and in two eggs they are darker, " clove 

 brown " or even " blackish brown." The shape is subpyriform. 



The measurements of these 11 eggs average 30.4 by 21.8 millimeters; 

 the eggs showing the four extremes measure 33 by 22.8, 30.5 by 23.3, 

 28.7 by 20.8, and 29.3 by 20.3 millimeters. 



Young. — Regarding incubation and care of the young, Mr. Dixon 

 (1918) writes: 



Regarding the time required for incubation, we have only circumstantial evi- 

 dence to offer, but our observations lead us to believe that about 18 or 20 days 

 elapse between the time the last egg is laid and the first young hatched. The 

 most striking fact in the domestic life of the spoonbilled sandpiper is that the 

 major portion of the household duties, aside from the actual laying of the eggs, 

 is performed by the male and not the female bird. In addition to our own 

 observations, Kleinschmidt also has found this to be the case. In the author's 

 experience, none of the several females taken were found on or within 50 feet 

 of the nest. It is possible, however, that they may have been warned by 

 the male birds and had sneaked off before we were close enough to detect 

 their leaving. In the unequal division of domestic duties conditions among 

 the spoonbills are similar to those among the phalaropes, where the male, after 

 he has been courted and won by the larger and more brilliant female, takes 

 upon himself almost all of the household cares. However, in the case of the 

 spoonbilled sandpiper there is nothing to show that the female does the court- 



