PECTORAL SANDPIPER. 



203 



iinfrcf|ucntly conj^regatcs with other specicH, such as Knots and Stints ; 

 but <'it all times it seems to show a preference for marshes rather than 

 mud-flats, and resembles the Snipes in this respect far more than the 

 typical Sandpipers. 



Of the breeding-habits of the Pectoral Sandpiper nothing yet has been 

 published, but its eggs were obtained by Lieutenant Ray near Point 

 Barrow in Alaska during the last week in June 1883. They are very 

 handsome eggs, and closely resemble in colour those of the American 

 Stint, though they are more than twice the size. The ground-colour varies 

 from pale buff to pale olive-brown; the surface-spots are very large 

 and irregular in shape and generally of the richest reddest brown. 

 Where the surface-spots are not so crowded as to become confluent and 

 hide the ground-colour the grey underlying spots are very conspicuous. 

 An egg belonging to the Smithsonian Institution, kindly lent me to be 

 figured, measures 1*55 inch in length and 1*05 inch in breadth. 



The Pectoral Sandpiper is neither more nor less than a giant form of the 

 Little Stint ; the proportions are the same, but in every dimension it is 

 one third larger. The description of one bird, so far as colour is con- 

 cerned, will apply to the other in all the stages of their plumage'^, with 

 two exceptions — the legs and feet of the Pectoral Sandpiper are buff", 

 and the breast is of a slightly' different colour. The ground-colour is 

 always grey — in young in first plumage, and in adult in summer, profusely 

 streaked with dark brown, but in winter, botli in the adult and in birds of 

 the year, only sparingly so. 



* Dr. Coues is wrong in fitating ("Key N. Anier. Birds, 2nd ed. p. 027) that this species 

 is " not known to have a plain ashy and white winter plumage like most Sandpipers.'' 

 Winter examples in the collection of Messrs. Salvin and Godman, and in my own, from 

 Central America, exactly resemble in colour winter examples of the Little Stint, except 

 that the breast is gi-eyer and more streaked. 





