4 SCOLOPACID^. 



yards from the ground, where, hovering upon quivering wings, the bird pours 

 forth a lisping but energetic and frequently musical song, which can be very 

 imperfectly expressed by the syllables peet-peet ; pee-ter-ioee-too ; ivee-too ; pee-ter- 

 xvee-too; pee-ter-wee-too ; voee-too ; wee-too. This is the complete song, but 

 frequently only fragments are sung, as when the bird is in pursuit of the female. 



" June 16, while crossing a tussock-covered hill-top, over a mile from any 

 water, I was surprised to see a female of this species flutter from her nest about 

 6 feet in front of me, and skulk off through the grass with trailing wings and 

 depressed head for some 10 or 15 yards, then stand nearly concealed by a tuft of 

 grass and watch me as I pillaged her home of its treasures. 



" The eggs, four in number (set No. 299), rested in a shallow depression formed 

 by the bird's body in the soft moss and without a trace of lining. These eggs 

 measure respectively 1-80 by 1-21 ; 1-70 by 1-20 ; 1-C9 by 1 "20 ; 1-72 by 1-23. A 

 second set of four (No. 328), taken on lower ground, June 20, the same season, 

 measure I'SO by 1-22; 1-72 by 1-23; 1-87 by 1-24; 1-83 by 1-25, and set 

 No. 222, from a boggy flat, but with no nest, except the dead grass naturally 

 found on the place occupied, was taken June 13, the same season, and measures 

 1-73 by 1-23; 1-72 by 1-23; 1-70 by 1-22; 1-72 by 1-22. The ground-colour 

 varies from a greenish clayey olive to a light grayish or clay color. The spots 

 are large, well-defined, and scattered sparsely, except about the tip of large end, 

 where they are crowded. These spots are dark umber-brown, and present a 

 striking contrast to the ground-color. All the eggs mentioned above were fresh, 

 but the young are full-grown and on the wing with their parents the last of July, 

 and the first of August finds the adults rapidly changing their breeding-dress for 

 that of winter, and gathering into flocks. By the first of September they are in 

 perfect winter dress, and frequent muddy flats, the edges of tide-creeks, and other 

 places, exactly as they do in their passage south or north in middle latitudes. 

 They have the same unsuspicious ways here as there, and may be shot at again 

 and again, as they keep about their wounded comrades. Not long after griseus 

 and scolopaceus were first distinguished many ornithologists reunited the two 

 as inseparable, but lately Messrs. Ridgway and Lawrence, in the Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club Bulletin for July, 1880, have adduced proof which must go 

 far toward convincing the most sceptical of their diff"erence. 



" Having occasion in the preparation of this article to compare my Alaskan 

 series with the specimens from various parts of the country in the National 

 Museum collection, I find there is not the slightest difficulty in distinguishing the 

 two birds except in very rare instances." 



