392 Dixon, The Spoon-billed Sandpiper, [oct. 



bright as in breeding birds. The writer has been unable to dis- 

 cover any indication of the fall molt in these two specimens. 



Mr. Granville has given me a full account of the circumstances 

 under which he took these two Spoonbills at Wainwright Inlet. 

 The following extracts, slightly modified in wording, are from his 

 letter of January 9, 1918. "On August 15, 1914, I and my assist- 

 ant hiked back of Wainwright to what I judged to be a distance of 

 about ten miles, traveling in a northerly direction. . . . The tundra 

 where I found the Spoonbills was interlaced as far as the eye could 

 see with little lagoons and long channels of water, and in this 

 territory I collected the two Spoon-bills. . . . These birds were shot 

 out of a flock of possibly ten. I followed them for about an hour 

 before I could get a shot at them. The birds would run along the 

 tundra en masse and were undoubtedly gleaning food from the 

 moss. The minute they would catch sight of me they would fly 

 out of shot-gun range. There were about six birds that looked 

 to me through field glasses to be in markedly different plumage 

 from the birds I shot. These six birds, immature as I supposed, 

 seemed to be of a solid color and that a dark gray. On the first 

 shot fired, with which I got two, the birds flew across a lake and I 

 lost track of them, though I spent four or five hours looking for 

 some more .... I believe that these birds breed in the neighborhood 

 of Wainwright and hope that at some close future date someone 

 will bear out my statement " 



It is a common occurrence for whaling and exploring vessels to 

 visit both the Siberian and American shores during a summer 

 cruise in the Arctic, hence reliability of the collector is the only 

 guarantee as to places of capture of specimens gathered on such a 

 cruise. Since the species under discussion is rare on the American 

 shore and occurs in relatively much greater abundance on its 

 breeding ground on the Siberian side, it is one regarding which 

 mistakes might easily occur. Mr. Granville, while not a well- 

 known collector, has been a member of the Cooper Club for several 

 years, and is a man whose observations we can accept without 

 question. 



The writer spent several days at Wainwright Inlet two weeks 

 after Mr. Granville's departure and although the various flocks of 

 sandpipers present, then mostly in winter plumage, were examined 



