72 BULLETIN 146^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



feet, then drifting off to leeward. A single bird will sometimes stretch himself 

 up to his full height, spread his wings forward, and puff out his throat, making 

 a sort of clucking noise, while one or two others stand by and apparently 

 admire him. 



Nesting. — Roderick MacFarlane found the buff-breasted sandpiper 

 breeding commonly on the barren grounds east of Horton River and 

 on the Arctic coast. I find the records of some 25 nests in his notes, 

 but the data given are very meager. One nest was "near a small 

 river, made of a few dead leaves " ; another was " a depression in the 

 ground, lined with a few withered grasses and leaves, on the slope of 

 a gentle eminence"; a third, he said, was "precisely similar to that 

 of the golden plover. The female made a short, low flight to a dis- 

 tance of about 12 yards, when the nest was approached within 9 or 

 10 feet." 



Murdoch (1885), at Point Barrow, "collected the eggs in con- 

 siderable abundance " ; he says that " they were never seen on the 

 lower marshy portions of the tundra, but always confined themselves 

 to the high and dry banks, or what we call the black tundra." The 

 eggs were deposited "in a shallow depression in the ground lined 

 with a little moss," where they harmonized ver}^ well with the black 

 and white of the ground and moss. 



Eggs. — The buff-breasted sandpiper lays four eggs; one set of 

 five is recorded. The shapes vary from ovate pyriform to pyriform, 

 usually decidedly pointed. The prevailing ground colors are very 

 light, from "cartridge buff" to dull white; in some darker colored 

 eggs they are " olive-buff," " chamois," or " cream buff." They are 

 heavily and boldly marked, chiefly at the large end, where the mark- 

 ings are often confluent, with longitudinal and somewhat spiral 

 blotches and with small spots and blotches scattered over the whole 

 egg. An occasional Q,gg is only sparingly marked with small spots. 

 The markings are in dark browns, "bister," "sepia," "liver brown" 

 and " livid brown," sometimes " Saccardo's umber " or " chestnut 

 brown." There are usually underlying blotches and spots in various 

 shades of " brownish drab " or " drab-gray." The measurements of 

 62 eggs in the United States National Museum average 37 by 26 

 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measures 40 by 27, 

 37.5 by 27.5, 34.5 by 25.5, and 35.5 by 25 millimeters. 



Plumages. — I have never seen a downy young buff-breasted sand- 

 piper and I doubt if any one else has. Young birds are in ju venal 

 plumage when they migrate southward. They are like the adults, ex- 

 cept as follows : The feathers of the mantle are sepia with an olive 

 tinge, " dark grayish olive," narrowly edged with cream white, giving 

 a scaled appearance, whereas in the adult these feathers are brownish 

 black or black, with very broad edgings of " cinnamon-buff " or 

 " pinkish buff " ; the feathers of the lower back, rump and upper tail 



