The terrestrial mammals ami birds of Nurth-East Greeiilaiul. 



133 



It may, however also be heard at other times of the day even 

 in severe snow-squalls and at midnight. 



I never succeeded in observing the pairing-act itself. 



Solitary flying males, which, judging from their behaviour and 

 direct flight, were on migration farther North, would in the first 

 days of June utter flute-like notes. These notes sounded like the 

 beginning of the pairing-song, but were not so passionate and may 

 perhaps be understood as a sort of call notes. The real call note 

 of this species is short and growling and the same for both sexes. 



In the breeding season the male is pugnacious and quarrelsome 

 against birds of its own kin as well as against other small birds, 

 which appear within his domain. Uttering a short cry he will tly 

 up and pursue the intruder in the most violent manner and often 

 he would follow it so far away, that I could 

 not see them even through my field glass. He 

 would soon return and having — triumphantly 

 fluting — circled around several times, go down 

 to his mate. 



I have seen the Knot pursue even Skuas. 



Already June lO''^ I found an almost fully 

 developed egg in a shot female. From the 

 middle of June I often met with females, the 

 behaviour of which made me suppose with cer- 

 tainty, that they had commenced to breed. In 

 such birds I found well-marked breeding spots, 

 and but quite small eggs in the ovaries. All 

 the breeding birds observed behaved in nearly 

 the same way. When I carefully walked over a larger table-land a 

 bird would suddenly appear just before my feet, rushing silently and 

 as secretly as possible away between stones and following furrows 

 in the earth. When I — having vainly searched for the nest — 

 rapidly followed the bird, this would with a short call fly high up 

 in the air, disappear for some moments and again appear a little 

 farther forward on the plain, where it continued its silent running 

 as it seemed without the slightest inclination to go to the nest. If 

 at last I secured such a bird it always proved to be very thin and 

 to have breeding spots — certain signs, that it had eggs or young 

 ones. I have from an ambush watched such birds for hours, but I 

 never succeeded in getting them to show me their nest. 



The breeding localities were quite the same as those of Calidris 

 arenaria: Dry, stony, sparsely covered table lands with clay or sand- 

 mixed ground. I met, however, always with the supposed breeding- 

 birds on rather extensive plains and not on the small "stone-islets" 



Fig. 4. Ovary of Knot. 

 Killed June 10th 1907. 



