244 BULLETIN 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Casual records. — A specimen of this sandpiper has been reported 

 as taken on the Choris Peninsula, Alaska, in 1849 (Harting, 1871), 

 but subsequent investigation (Dixon, 1918) indicates that the bird 

 was probably taken on the Siberian side of Bering Strait. Two 

 specimens were, however, taken near Wainwright Inlet, on August 

 15, 1914 (Dixon, 1918). 



Egg date*. — Siberia : 2 records, June 22 and July 15. 



EREUNETES PUSILLUS (Linnaeus) 

 SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER 



HABITS 



Contributed by Charles Wendell Townsend 



This little sandy colored sandpiper, appropriately called the " sand 

 peep," seems most at home on the sea beaches, but it also frequents 

 the sand flats of tidal estuaries, and to a less extent, the salt marshes, 

 and is even found on the shores of inland lakes during the migrations. 



Courtship. — Although I have never seen this bird on its north- 

 ern breeding grounds, I have been so fortunate as to have heard many 

 times the courtship song during the migrations on the New England 

 coast, and to have witnessed some, at least, of its posturing on the 

 ground. This sandpiper is more of a musician than the least, and 

 his song is well worth hearing. I can but repeat what I have 

 already published on the subject (1905) : 



Rising on quivering wings to about 30 feet from the ground, the bird ad- 

 vances with rapid wing beats, curving the pinions strongly downward, pouring 

 forth a succession of musical notes — a continuous quavering trill — and ending 

 with a few very sweet notes that recall those of a goldfinch. He then descends 

 to the ground where one may be lucky enough, if near at hand, to hear a low 

 musical cluck from the excited bird. This is, I suppose, the full love flight 

 song, and is not often heard in its entirety, but the first quavering trill is not 

 uncommon, a single bird or member of a flock singing this as he flies over. 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1900) writes as follows of this species at 

 Cape Blossom, Alaska, in July : 



A few were to be found in the interior on damp, grassy flats, but the strip 

 of low meadow bordering the lagoon back of the mission was by far the most 

 popular resort. Here the grass was short and smooth as a lawn, with occa- 

 sional narrow branches from the main slough cutting their way back toward 

 the higher ground. In one part of this stretch of tide flats the sandpipers 

 were so numerous that as many as a dozen pairs were in sight at once, and 

 their twittering notes were to be heard on all sides. They were flying back 

 and forth over the meadows chasing one another, with shrill, rolling notes 

 uttered so continuously as to become almost inaudible from their monotony. 

 At times in an individual case this trilling would become so intensified as to 

 remind one of the shrill notes of the white throated swift. 



