334 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



old bird refused to leave until his horses were standing over her and the 

 plowshare was at the very point of burying her and her treasures in the 

 earth. The nest is a mere depression lined with grasses and small stalks. 

 The eggs are four in number, large and pyrifomi in shape, buff}- white in 

 color spotted with chocolate and reddish brown, more thickly about the 

 larger end, the average dimensions being 1.75 x 1.3 inches. The downy 

 young are buffv white tinged with rusty above and mottled with Ijlackish ; 

 blackish spots below the eye, a small one on the lores and a large one behind 

 the ear. 



Tryngites subruficollis (Vieillot) 

 Buff -breasted Sandpiper 



Plate 58 



Tringa subruficollis Vieillot. Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. i8ig. 34: 465 



T r i n g a r u f e s c e n s DeKay. Zool. X. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 238, fig. 197 



T r i n g i t e s subruficollis A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 2. 1895. No. 262 



tringt'tes, Gr. Tpvi'yvT-rj^ , a sandpiper; subnificoriis, Lat. sub, below, riifiis, 

 reddish, and colluin, neck 



Description. Bill shorter than head, slender, grooved nearly the whole 

 length, hard at tip; gape extensive; tail rounded, the central feathers pro- 

 jecting; tarsus longer than middle toe and claw; toes cleft. Primaries 

 grayish brown, darker toward the tips, their inner webs and the secondaries 

 peculiarly marbled ivith white; central tail feathers greenish brown, darker 

 toward the end, the others grayish or rufascent with subterminal black 

 bar and buffy white tips; upper parts in general olive-brown broadh' mar- 

 gined with yellowish brown, or ocherous, giving a prevailing tawny color; 

 under parts pale buff slightly streaked or spotted on the sides of the breast; 

 bill brownish black; legs yellowish. Winter and immature: Very similar 

 but paler below. 



Length 7-8.9 inches, average 8.5; extent 16-17; wing 5-5.5; tail 2.5; 

 tarsus 1.15-1.3; middle toe and claw i; bill .7-. 8. 



The Buff-breasted sandpiper is a nearctic species breeding in high 

 latitudes, and wintering in South America. It is rather tmcommon even 

 in the Mississippi valley and is one of the rarer sandpipers on om* Atlantic 

 coast. Like the preceding species, it inhabits the dry prairies and sandy 

 fields during migration and is rarely taken along the beach. The following 



