Birds of Indiana. 721 



*103. (-255). Totanus flavipes (Gmel.). 



Yellow-legs. 



A miniature of the last; colors, precisely the same; legs, compara- 

 tively longer; bill, grooved rather farther. May always be distin- 

 guished by its sfnaller size. 



Length, 10.50-11.00; wing, 5.50-6.50; bill, 1.30-1.55; tarsus, 3.00. 



Eange. — America, from Patagonia to the Arctic Ocean. Breeds 

 principally in the interior from northern Illinois and Minnesota 

 northward. Winters from Gulf coast southward. 



Nest, a hollow in ground, lined with grass. Eggs, 3-1; color, varia- 

 ble, usually buffy, spotted or blotched with dark madder or vandyke 

 brown and purplish-gray; 1.69 by 1.15. 



Common migrant; much more numerous in the northern part of the 

 State, where some are summer residents and breed. More common in 

 the fall, when they are often found associated with other kinds of 

 Sandpipers on mud flats and shores. In the spring they sometimes 

 begin to arrive by April 1, and the latter part of the month, they have 

 left the greater part of the State, though in the northern part they 

 sometimes are found well towards the middle of May. 



The earliest arrivals in spring were in 1895. That year Mr. Parker 

 took one at Liverpool, Ind., March 30, and Mr. Earlle, one, April 1, at 

 Greencastle. The last report from southern Indiana that spring was 

 from Bloomington, where it was noted April 26 (Juday). In the White- 

 water Valley its earliest arrival at Brookville is April 7 (1883) and the 

 latest first amval April 17 (1884 and 1896). In 1896 it was last seen 

 at Laporte May 8 (Barber). In 1890 flocks were seen at English Lake 

 May i and 11, and in 1891, on May 10, several large flocks were 

 noted. There was quite a flight all day (Deane). Mr. L. T. Meyer 

 tells me he found its nest and obtained a set of four eggs in the Calu- 

 met marsh, Lake County, in 1885. 



In 1893 they appeared there on the return migration, the earliest I 

 have ever known them. That year was very dry, and the continued 

 drouth had almost exhausted the water in Mud Lake, 111., and left its 

 soft bottom an exposed mud flat. This, which had been a favorite 

 feeding ground in fall, was unusually attractive to them that year. 

 Perhaps the dry weather extended far enough north to influence the 

 shore birds in their early movement. Mr. J. 0. Dunn found them 

 July 3, 1893, at Mud Lake in a flock, and shot two. One that he shot 

 from a flock of Least Sandpipers had one foot off. He notes that a 

 good portion of the Sandpipers shot had legs and toes missing. On 

 August 2, while wading on the flat, a Yellow-legs alighted and began 

 46 — Geoi. 



