5^4 Nichols, Limicoline Voices. [bet. 



modified somewhat, perhaps occasionally to "pup" coming in to 

 decoys, or to "peep" at other times. In flushing they sometimes 

 had an unloud chuckling call, short or prolonged. 



Except for recent experience with that race in Florida, incli- 

 nation would be to consider these notes characteristic of the 

 Long-billed Dowitcher, but the chances are there is no significant 

 difference in the calls of the two races. The "pip" note of the 

 Dowitcher corresponds, I take it, to the flocking "kip" note of 

 the Lesser Yellow-legs. When flocks of Lesser Yellow-legs have 

 been present and gone, a few birds still remaining tend to use the 

 flocking note more than their numbers would warrant, fcr several 

 days. The two Long-billed Dowitchers under consideration had 

 likely been associated with members of their own kind immediately 

 before the migration which brought them to Long Island. Prev- 

 ious unfamiliarity with the flocking note in the eastern bird is 

 accounted for by its small numbers in recent years; we know it to 

 have been highly gregarious when abundant. 



Stilt Sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus) . The common 

 flight-note of the Stilt Sandpiper is very like the single "whew" of 

 the Lesser Yellow-leg, but recognizably lower-pitched and hoarser. 

 An unloud, reedy "sher" has been heard from a pair of birds when 

 flushing (Long Island, July 26, 1919). 



The resemblance of flight-notes of Dowitcher and Stilt Sand- 

 piper to notes of the Lesser Yellow-legs is too striking to be passed 

 without comment. They are species whose habits of flight differ 

 least from it, and which are most generally associated with it in 

 the same flocks, though their feeding habits are different. The 

 resemblance of notes may be explained in several ways. One 

 explanation would be of racial homology, that these are special- 

 ized descendants of the Lesser Yellow-legs not related to Gallinago 

 which they resemble in form and near which they are convention- 

 ally placed. It is more reasonable to suppose the notes have been 

 to some extent borrowed back and forth between the three. We 

 are dealing here with flight notes, which in the two Yellow-legs 

 certainly have shown a tendency to deviate rather than to come 

 together, but then the flight-habits of those two are more contrast- 

 ed. As the matter stands, the notes of the three (Dowitcherj 



