5J.2 Recently piibU shed Ornithnloyicnl Wurks. [Ibis, 



Dixon on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. 



[The ne.stinp:-gTOunds and nesting-habits of the Spnon-billed Sandpiper. 

 P.y Joseph Dixon. Auk, xxxv. 1918, pp. 3S7 404. pi. v. and a text- 

 fignres.] 



The Spoon-l)ille(l Sandpiper {Eurynorhynchus pygmaufs) is, 

 so far as its breeding-grounds and nesting-ha])its are con- 

 cerned, one of the rarest of tbe Waders. It is distinguished 

 from all its congeners by the peculiar widening of the tip of 

 the mandible, from which it derives its name and for which 

 no one has suggested a satisfactory explanation. Until 1910 

 only one example of this Sandpiper, taken in its breeding- 

 grounds, was known. Tliis was one still preserved in the 

 Oxford Museum, taken h\ Captain Moore of the ' Plover,' 

 which, with H.M.S. 'Herald,' were two ships sent out in 

 1848 to search for Sir John Franklin. The ^Plover' 

 wintered in Providence Bay, north-eastern Siberia, and did 

 not get free until the end of June 1849, when she proceeded 

 to Kotzebue Sound in Alaska, and althoutih Captain Aloore's 

 single specimen has, in most of the works mentioning it, 

 been recorded as having been obtained in Alaska, it was 

 almost certainly collected on the Siberian side of Hehring 

 Straits. The only certain record for Alaska is that of 

 Mr. F. Granville of Los Angeles, California, who in Angust 

 1914 took two specimens at Wainwright Inlet on the 

 Arctic coast of Alaska ; but several collectors, including 

 Mr. Dixon, have obtained nests, eggs, and downy young 

 at various points on the north-eastern coast of Siberia 

 during the last few years. 



Mr. Dixon, after detailing the history of the discovery 

 of the bird, relates his own experiences and observations. 

 He found a nest on 2.2 Jnne, 1913, :it Providence Bay with 

 two fresh eggs, and about a month later another one at 

 Cape Serdze a little farther north, with three downy young 

 just out of the nest. The nests were on the open tundra 

 and merely consisted of a cavity scratched out among dead 

 grass-blades. In both cases the nests were discovered by 

 flushing the l)rooding male, which appears to undertake the 

 orreater part of the household duties as in the case of the 



