BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 123 



The extreme variations in the measurements of individuals 

 of the same species amongst the Limicoline birds is too well 

 known to be questioned, but fifty against one settles it till 

 another forty- nine shall arise to help him fight his battle over. 

 The tinkering with the nomenclature of the birds has been the 

 terror of the tyros. 



MICROPALAMA HIMANTOPUS (Bonaparte). (233.) 

 STILT SANDPIPER. 



This Sandpiper was one of the first of my trophies in my early 

 collections in the then Territory of Minnesota. In years after- 

 wards, I had made many a collecting tour before I had this bird 

 in hand again. Since then for some twenty-five years, it has been 

 my good fortune to meet them many times, but not every sea- 

 son of migration, nor even every year, and they are never com- 

 mon. Coming to us in the night, as do all of the scolopaceous 

 birds, they are easily overlooked for some time after their 

 arrival in most cases, but through the long series of observa- 

 tions I have recorded, I find that they have come under my 

 notice on the average about the fifth of April. 



They remain but a short time before the last have disap 

 peared in a further northward movement. They come in 

 small flocks, and keep mostly about shallow ponds, and along 

 the smaller streams flowing through the marshes, but I have 

 found them on the sandy beaches of some of the larger lakes 

 on several occasions. Their food while here does not differ 

 from that of most other species of the family. They are shy, 

 and exceedingly vigilant, making it no easy matter to get 

 them. By the last week in August they begin to return to us 

 in appreciably larger numbers, and remain until about the first 

 of November. I have no record later than October 27th. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Legs long, slender; toes slender, united at base with web, 

 the outer of which is the larger; hind toe small; bill long, some- 

 what arched, slender, much compressed, expanded and flat- 

 tened at the tip, which is minutely punctulated and corrugated, 

 pointed; tail short, middle feathers longest, outer feathers 

 frequently longer than the next, under coverts long; lower 

 half of tibia naked; upper parts brownish- black, nearly all the 

 feathers edged with ashy -white and yellowish- red; narrow 

 band from above the eye to the occiput, bright brownish- red, 

 inclosing the brownish-black of the top of the head; spot on 

 the ears the same red; rump and upper tail coverts white, with 

 transverse narrow stripes and pointed spots of brownish black; 



