180 BULLETIN 14G, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



They found that several of the party had repeatedly passed quite close 

 to, and one had nearly trodden on the eggs. Watching the bird 

 return to the nest, which she generally does within a few minutes, 

 seems to be the best way of finding a nest. 



Of the nests found near Point Barrow, Mr. Murdoch (1885) says: 



The nest is exceedingly hard to find, although it is not concealed at all, but 

 is simply a depression in the bare black clayey tundra lined with a little dry 

 moss. The only vegetation on this part of the tundra if? white and grayish 

 moss, which harmonizes so extraordinarily with the peculiar blotching of the 

 eggs that it is almost impossible to see them unless one knows exactly where 

 to look. A favorite nesting site is on the high banks of the gullies or small 

 streams. No nests were ever found in the grass or in swampy ground. 



W. Sprague Brooks (1915) found only one nest near Demarcation 

 Point, Alaska, of which he says : 



I found this nest on June 25 with three eggs about one-quarter incubated. 

 The male was on the nest. It took several days to find the nest, for the bird 

 would leave when I was a long way off and begin running about and feeding 

 as though it had nothing else to do. By placing a lump of tundra each day 

 where I first saw the bird I eventually found her nest, a mere depression in 

 some greenish moss which, with scattered bits of brown dead vegetation, 

 harmonized extraordinarily with the eggs. 



When the bird saw that its nest was finally discovered it showed great 

 distress and ran toward me until about 20 paces distant, where it stood totter- 

 ing as if about to fall, with one wing raised over its back. In a short time 

 the bird, with tail down and a wing dragging, wovild walk slowly from me. 

 As I never followed, the bird would return and totter a while, repeating the 

 same performance several times until secured for the proper identification of 

 the eggs. 



Eggs. — The golden plover's normal set is of four eggs, but Mac- 

 Farlane collected many sets of three and one of five. These are 

 quite uniformly ovate pyriform in shape and have only a slight 

 gloss. The ground colors vary from " cinnamon buff " or " light 

 pinkish cinnamon " to " light buff," " cartridge buff," or " cream 

 color," hence more buffy or less olivaceous or grayish than in eggs 

 of the black-bellied plover. They are boldy and profusely marked, 

 more or less irregularly, with large and small spots and irregular 

 blotches of very dark browns or black, " Vandj^ke brown," " clove 

 brown," and brownish black. Sometimes there are a few under- 

 lying small spots of " drab gray." The measurements of 143 eggs 

 in the United States National Museum average 47.5 by 32.5 milli- 

 meters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 56 by 81, 50 by 

 34.5, 42 by 34, and 46 by 30 millimeters. Both sexes incubate. The 

 period of incubation for the European species is said to be 27 days. 



PluTnages. — In the downy young golden plover the forehead, 

 crown, back, wings, rump, and thighs are mottled with bright " wax 

 yellow " and black, the yellow being mainly at the tips of the down. 



