Shore-bird Shooting 481 



and the absence of a web between the anterior 

 toes. Their whistle is clear and loud and given 

 more often by a single bird than by a member of 

 the large flocks in which the turnstones some : 

 times assemble. 



SURF BIRD 



{Aphriza virgata) 



Adult male and female in summer plumage Head, neck, and back, 

 spotted and streaked with dusky and white, the white predom- 

 inating on the head, neck, and breast, where the darker mark- 

 ings are in irregular streaks, but in the form of crescentric bars 

 on the back and lower breast; scapulars marked with large, 

 irregular spots of rufous ; wing-coverts, grayish brown ; tips of 

 greater coverts, white, forming a bar across the wing ; primaries, 

 blackish brown with white shafts ; rump, brown, indistinctly 

 tipped with white ; upper tail-coverts, white ; tail, white on the 

 base, the remaining half, black; abdomen, white; flanks and 

 lower tail-coverts, white with black spots ; bill, black with yel- 

 lowish base ; legs and feet, yellowish ; iris, brown. 



Winter plumage Head, neck, and upper parts, slate color ; rest, as 

 in summer. 



Young Upper part, brownish gray, the feathers edged with whitish ; 

 throat, neck, and breast white, streaked with gray ; rest of lower 

 part and upper tail-coverts, white ; wings and tail, as in adult. 



Measurements Length, 10 inches ; wing, 7 inches ; culmen, I inch ; 

 tarsus, 1.25 inches; middle toe, .90 inch. 



Eggs Unknown. 



Habitat Breeds probably in the interior of northwestern Alaska. 

 Winters in South America, occurring in migration along the 

 Pacific Coast of North and South America, from the Kowak 

 River, Alaska, to Chili and the Straits of Magellan. 



The surf bird ranges along the Pacific Coast 

 of North and South America, but is apparently 

 everywhere rare, and little is known of its habits. 

 21 



