PECTORAL SANDPIPER. 3 



the breeding season, that is from the first of June to the first of July, the male may 

 frequently be seen taking short, low flights, with the wings held high and beaten 

 stiffly, while the throat is puff'ed out to its fullest extent, and the bird utters a 

 most peculiar muffled hoot ' hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,' many times repeated. There is 

 something ventriloquial about the sound, which makes it seem as if uttered by 

 some creature a long distance off", and it was some time before we could be certain 

 that it was the Pectoral Sandpipers that were making the noise. This hoot is 

 only uttered on the wing as far as 1 was able to observe, though the males may be 

 often seen to puff out their throats as they sit on the little knolls. 



" They get their native name ' Aibwukin,' the ' walrus bird,' from this habit 

 of swelling out their throats, like ' Aibwiik,' the walrus. 



" After the breeding season, they keep very quiet and retired, like the rest of 

 the waders, and the adults appear to slip quietly away without collecting into 

 flocks, as soon as the young are able to take care of themselves. 



" As soon as the young have assumed the complete fall plumage, that is 

 about the 10th of August, they gather in large flocks with the other young 

 waders, especially about the small ponds on the high land below Cape Smythe, 

 and stay for several days before they take their departure for the south. Stray 

 birds remain as late as the first week of September. 



" The nest is always built in the grass, Avith a decided preference for high 

 and dry localities like the banks of gullies and streams. It was sometimes placed 

 at the edge of a small pool, but always in grass and in a dry place, never in the 

 black clay and moss, like the Plover and Buff'-breasted Sandpipers, or in the 

 marsh, like the Phalaropes. The nest was like that of the other waders, a 

 depression in the ground lined with a little dry grass. 



" All the complete sets of eggs we found contained four. The following is a 

 description of the eggs, obtained from the examination of eighteen sets. They 

 are pointedly pyriform like those of the other small waders. 



" The follow^ing measurements, in inches, indicate the size, shape, and limits 

 of variation :— 1-58 by 1-06 ; 1-44 by 1 11 ; 1-42 by I'OS ; 1-54 by 1-02. 



" In color and markings they closely resemble the eggs of the other small 

 waders. The ground color is drab, sometimes with a greenish tinge, though 

 never so green as in the egg of P. alpina americana, and sometimes a pale 

 bistre-brown. The markings are blotchings of clear umber brown, varying in 

 intensity, thickest and sometimes confluent around the larger end, smaller and 

 more scattered at the smaller end. Some of the eggs with brown ground are 

 thickly blotched all over. A single egg in one set of four has the markings 

 almost as fine as in A. bairdi, but the egg is larger and has not the characteristic 



