376 GAME BIEDS OF CALIFORNIA 



The Baird Sandpiper is said not to indulge in the nuptial flights 

 and performances common among other shore birds. The nest and 

 sitting female are both so inconspicuous that it is almost impossible 

 to find them. The only practical way to do so is to withdraw after 

 having flushed the bird, "mark" the location when she returns, and 

 then proceed directly to the nest (Murdoch, 1885, p. 112). 



Murdock (loc. cit.) states that in the vicinity of Point Barrow, 

 Alaska, eggs were obtained only during the last week in June and 

 the first week in July, a trifle later than is the case with other shore 

 birds. ' ' The nest was always well hidden in the grass, and never 

 placed in marshy ground or on the bare black parts of tundra, and 

 consists merely of a slight depression in the ground thinly lined with 

 dried grass." "The eggs are usually four in number; buff or clay- 

 colored, spotted and blotched with varying shades of chestnut-brown ; 

 in most instances the markings are fine and innumerable, of indefinite 

 size, irregular in shape and thickness at the greater end, where they 

 are occasionally massed in blotches" (Davie, 1889, p. 114). 



The food of the Baird Sandpiper comprises among other things 

 mosquitoes, crane-fly larvae, grasshoppers, cutworms and clover-root 

 curculios (McAtee, 1911a) all of which, with the possible exception 

 of the mosquitoes, are to be found in dry inland locations. 



The Baird Sandpiper is too small properly to be classed as a game 

 species. Moreover, its numbers migrating through California are 

 too limited to merit it the attention of any persons save nature lovers 

 and ornithologists. 



Least Sandpiper 

 Pisohia niinutilla (Vieillot) 



Other names — Peeps, part; Little Sandpiper; Pigmies, part; Jack Snipe 

 (Fresno district); Tringa minutiJIa; Limonites minutiUa; Actodromas minutilla; 

 Tringa wilsonii. 



Description — Adults, both sexes, in spring and shimmer: Top of head, hind 

 neck, back and scapulars, black, with extensive feather marginings of rusty 

 brown or tawny and dark buffy, some of the feathers narrowly tipped with 

 white (these tippings subject to disappearance through wear) ; stripe from 

 base of upper mandible to above eye, recurring behind eye, whitish, flecked 

 with dark brown; stripe beneath this, dark brown flecked with black; cheek 

 buffy, with brownish shaft streaks; chin white, lightly flecked with dark brown; 

 bill black, yellowish at lower base; iris brown; rump and central upper tail 

 coverts, brownish or velvety black; outermost upper tail coverts brown widely 

 margined with white; innermost tail feathers black, outer ones drab; outer 

 surface of closed wing ashy brown, sometimes with scattering feathers in 

 coverts black with broad tawny margins; narrow white bar across wing formed 

 by white tips of greater coverts and innermost secondaries; shaft of outer- 

 most primary white; margin of wing mottled Inowu and white; axillars and 



