270 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



PECTORAL SANDPIPER {Pisobia maculata). 



Common or local names: Grass-bird; Brownie; Brown-back; Marsh-plover; 



Krieker; Squatter. 



Length. — About 9 to 9.50 inches; bill about 1.10. 



Adult in Fall. — Above brown in general effect, the centers of feathers 

 brownish black, the edges ashy, buffy, white and dark chestnut red; 

 top of head chestnut, streaked heavily with black; a light streak over 

 eye and a more or less distinct dark line through it; middle tail feathers 

 dark, longest, pointed, outer ones light ash with white edges; throat 

 white; sides of head, neck and breast dull buff, streaked with dusky; 

 rest of under parts white; bill yellowish at base, rest black; feet and 

 legs dull yellowish olive. 



Adult in Spring, and Young. — Similar. (The diflferences between spring 

 or summer and fall or winter plumages appear to be inconstant.) 



Field Marks. — Usually found in pairs or small flocks on salt marshes or 

 meadows and rarely on mud flats or beaches. This and its general 

 brown appearance and absence of conspicuous streaks on the back, as 

 well as absence of a white rump, should distinguish it from other Sand- 

 pipers of this size. It looks as if it might be a great, overgrown Least 

 Sandpiper. 



Notes. — A grating whistle, creak, creak: song, a hollow, resonant, musical 

 too-u, repeated eight times, made after filling aesophagus with air until 

 it is puffed out to size of body (Nelson). Heard only on its northern 

 breeding grounds. 



Season. — April and May, July to October. 



Range. — North and South America. Breeds on the Arctic coast from the 

 Yukon mouth to northeastern Mackenzie; winters in South America 

 from Peru and Bolivia to northern Chile, Argentina and central Pata- 

 gonia; in migration very rare on Pacific coast south of British Columbia, 

 except in Lower California; common in fall migration on Atlantic coast 

 and in Mississippi valley, rare in spring; casual in northeastern Siberia, 

 Unalaska and Greenland; accidental in Hawaii and England. 



