394 Dixon, The Spoon-billed Sandpiper. [o c t. 



was secured on October 8 at Hokodadi [Hakodate], Japan, while 

 an adult female was collected at Ragoon, India, on December 1. 

 The spring migration is represented by an adult male in summer 

 plumage taken in April at Shanghai, China. 



Although this bird has been known for many years, at least as 

 far back as the time of Linnpeus in 1764 (Harting, 1869, p. 428), it 

 was only the winter plumage with which ornithologists were 

 familiar. The summer dress was unknown until 1849, when 

 Captain Moore of the Plover took his single specimen. The 

 breeding ground of this species was not definitely known until 

 Johan Koren found young Spoon-billed Sandpipers able to run 

 on July 24, 1909, on the mainland near Koliuchin Island, northeast 

 Siberia. Koren also took a half-fledged young on July 28 or 29, 

 1909, at Cape Wankarem about seventy miles west of Koliuchin 

 Island (Koren, 1910, pp. 14-15). To John E. Thayer, we are 

 indebted for the first published description of the nest and eggs 

 of this rare wader, based upon a nest with four eggs and the male 

 parent, together with eight downy young, secured by Captain F. E. 

 Kleinschmidt at Cape Serdze, northeast Siberia, July 15, 1910. 

 This article, published in 'The Auk' for April, 1911, was illustrated 

 by colored plates of the eggs and the head and bill of the downy 

 young and adult stages. 



Nordenskiold (1881, p. 43) reports that birds of this species 

 appeared in numbers in June near the winter quarters of the Vega. 

 This locality was near the east shore of Koliuchin Bay. Norden- 

 skiold, however, discovered no evidence of the species breeding at 

 this point and it was nearly thirty years later that Koren found 

 young Spoon-billed Sandpipers in this region. 



The present author met his first living Spoon-billed Sandpiper at 

 Providence Bay, Siberia (see Plate V, Fig. 1) the middle of June, 

 1913, when upon an ornithological cruise in the Arctic in the 

 interests of John E. Thayer, who has kindly permitted the use of 

 such notes and material as were needed in the preparation of this 

 article. 



In color, size and actions the Spoon-billed Sandpiper closely 

 resembles the Eastern Least Stint (Pisobia minuta ruficollis) , the 

 marked similarity between them resulting in both the author and 

 his fellow collector W. S. Brooks, failing to distinguish between the 



