652 THE SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER. 
racing “hurryback.”” At high tide it retires cheerfully to the marshes and 
probes for food in the more open places. 
The home-making within the Arctic Circle seems incredibly brief, but it 
is probably unfair to identify the northbound loiterers of June 1st with those 
who report back “All done” on July toth. 
No. 260. 
SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER. 
A. O. U. No. 238. Pisobia aurita (Latham). 
Description.—Adult: Above, feathers dusky centrally with edging of buffy 
and flaxen, edgings narrowest on tertials and rectrices, palest-rufous on crown 
(flight feathers nearly pure dusky) ; tail wedge-shaped, graduated, each feather 
tapering sharply; underparts white with strong buffy brown suffusion on throat 
and across breast; this area lightly speckled with obscure dusky, more heavily on 
sides of neck and breast; sides of head and obscure superciliaries whitish; flanks 
narrowly streaked with dusky; (from a Dec. specimen in Provincial Museum, 
Victoria). “Bill changing from greenish yellow basally to blackish toward tip; 
feet greenish yellow.” Length of adult; 8.00-9.00 ( 203.2-228.6) ; wing 5.00-5.50 
(127-139.7) ; tail 2.35 (59.7); bill 1.00 (25.4); tarsus 1.20 (30.5). 
Recognition Marks.—Chewink size. Most like P. maculata, especially in 
pattern of upperparts—a little smaller, more lightly streaked on breast. 
General Range.—Coast of eastern and northern Asia, east to Alaska, south 
during migrations to Australia; casually(?) south in winter on the west coast 
of America to Queen Charlotte Islands. 
Range in Washington.—One record, as below. 
Authorities.—Edson, Auk, Vol. XX V. Oct. 1908, p. 431. 
Specimens.—!’rovy. 
MR. EDSON’S record of four specimens taken at Bellingham in Septem- 
ber, 1892, marks the southernmost occurrence of this Asiatic species upon the 
American Coast. On December 27, 1897, two specimens were taken at 
Massett, Queen Charlotte Islands, by Rev. J. H. Keen. 
Mr. E. W. Nelson added this Sandpiper to the American fauna in Sep- 
tember, 1877, near St. Michaels, and in succeeding autumns found it to be one 
of the most common species of snipe thereabouts. He found them associated 
with Pectoral Sandpipers (Pisobia maculata), which they somewhat re- 
semble both in appearance and habit. It is supposed that the bird nests in 
northern Siberia, and that it sweeps thru western Alaska in the course of its 
return journey around the Asiatic coast; whence, as in many other cases, 
stragglers occur irregularly southward upon the American side. 
