14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 56 



four eggs on Attu Island on June 23. If we had had time to 

 thoroughly explore the inland ponds on some of the western islands, 

 where they are said to be common, we should probably have found 

 plenty of geese breeding. The status of these two geese was one 

 of the points we particularly wanted to settle and we were much 

 disappointed at not being able to do so. 



LOBIPES LOBATUS 



Northern Phalarope 



We saw a few Phalaropes on Atka Island where several nests 

 were found with fresh or incomplete sets of eggs on June 18. On 

 Kiska Island they were really abundant and breeding about the small 

 grassy ponds and sloughs, where a set of three fresh eggs was taken 

 on June 21. A small flock of apparently unmated birds of both 

 sexes, in which I counted seventeen birds at one time, frequented 

 the beach almost constantly, swimming about the piers of an old 

 dock or feeding in the surf where they floated buoyantly over the 

 little waves and fluttered over the crests of the small breakers. They 

 v/ere swimming about in little circles, picking up some minute objects 

 from the surface. They were very tame everywhere and, about the 

 ponds where they were breeding, very solicitous and noisy. Their 

 nests were made in little tussocks in the wet meadows around the 

 edges of the ponds or near the banks of streams. They were com- 

 mon on all the other islands where there were suitable breeding 

 grounds. 



ARQUATELLA MARITIMA COUESI 

 Aleutian Sandpiper 



The first specimen of this local species was taken on the beach at 

 Akun Island on June 4, and after that we saw them on every one 

 of the islands we visited, but they were not common among the 

 eastern islands. At Tanaga Island they were fairly abundant and 

 breeding on the inland tundra. 



Only one nest was found with eggs, on Kiska Island on June 14. 

 While climbing over a high hill a bird fluttered off directly under my 

 feet, on a bare moss covered space where there was only a scanty 

 growth of grass. The four large eggs lay well concealed in a deep 

 little hollow lined with dead leaves and bits of straw. The eggs were 

 only slightly incubated. On Attu Island on June 23, I shot a pair of 

 these birds which were very solicitous and evidently had a nest ; after 

 a short search I found it on a little moss covered hummock well up 

 on the hillside ; in a hollow similar to the first nest were three beauti- 



