SAttDEBLl^G 267 



On the 29th of June, 1864, we discovered a nest of this species in the barren 

 grounds east of Fort Anderson. It contained four eggs, which we afterwards 

 learnt were the first and only authenticated examples at that time known to 

 American naturalists. The nest was composed of withered grasses and leaves 

 placed in a small cavity or depression in the ground. The contents of the 

 eggs were quite fresh, and they measured 1.44 inches by 0.95 to 0.99 in breadth, 

 and their ground color was a brownish olive marked with faint spots and 

 blotches of bister. These markings were very generally diffused, but were a 

 little more numerous about the larger ends. They were of an oblong pyriform 

 shape. The parent bird was snared on the nest. It is a very rare bird in 

 the Anderson River country, and we failed to find another nest thereof. 



The main breeding grounds of the sanderling are probably on the 

 more northern Arctic islands, but not enough nests have ever been 

 found anywhere to produce the hosts of birds which we see on migra- 

 tions. Col. H. TV. Feilden (1877) gives the following description of 

 his discovery of the nest of this species : 



I first observed this species in Grinnell Land on the 5fh of June, 1S7G, flying 

 in company with knots and turnstones ; at this date it was feeding, like the 

 other waders, on the buds of Saxifraya oppo.\i!i folia. This bird was by no 

 means abundant along the coast of Grinnell Land, but I observed several pairs 

 in the aggregate, and found a nest of this species containing two eggs in latitude 

 82° 33' N. on June 24, 187G. This nest, from which I killed the male bird, was 

 placed on a gravel ridge, at an altitude of several hundred feet above the sea, 

 and the eggs were deposited in a slight depression in the center of a recumbent 

 plant of Arctic willow, the lining of the nest consisting of a few withered leaves 

 and some of the last year's catkins. August 8, 1876, along the shores of 

 Robeson Channel, I saw several parties of young ones, three to four in number, 

 following their parents, and led by the old birds, searching most diligently for 

 insects. At this date they were in a very interesting stage of plumage, being 

 just able to fly, but retaining some of the down on their feathers. 



The best account we have of the home life of the sanderling is 

 given to us by Mr. Manniche (1910) , Avho found this species to be one 

 of the commonest breeding birds in northeastern Greenland. He 

 writes : 



In the extensive moor and marsh stretches west of Stormkap are many smaller 

 stony and clayey parts lying scattered like a sort of islands. As these " stone 

 isles " are most restricted in size, I could without special difficulty realize the 

 existence of the birds here, and I found several nestling sanderlings on such 

 places. The problem was decidedly more difficult to me when the birds had 

 their homes on the extensive table lands farther inland ; here it will depend 

 on luck to meet with a couple of nestling sanderlings. 



The laying began about June 20. The fii-st nest found containing eggs dates 

 from June 28; these had, however, already been brooded for some days. 

 The clutch of eggs latest found dates from July 15 ; the eggs in this nest 

 were very much incubated. The sanderling places its nest on the before 

 mentioned dry clay-mixed stony plains sparsely covered with Salix arctica, 

 Dryas octopetala, Saxifraga oppositifolia, and a few other scattered low 

 growths. I only found the nest on places of this type, never on moors or 

 plains entirely uncovered. The larger or smaller extent, the higher or lower 



