EXPEDITION TO POINT IJAUIIOW, ALASKA. HI 



534. ACTODROMAS MACULATA (Vielll.) Couoa. 



PECTORAL SANDFIPEU (Aibtciikia = 



Though this species Is very common over the whole continent, and in fact over the greater 

 part of the world, its eggs and breeding habits have hitherto been undeseribrd.* We, Imd the 

 good fortune to lind them breeding in considerable abundance in the neighborhood of the station, 

 ind were able to bring home a good series of authentic eggs. 



It is one of the commonest of our waders, occurring all over the tundra in all sorts of situa- 

 tions, though never found on the beach. 



Them is frequently a great disparity of size between the two sexes. A comparison of the 

 large series we collected shows that the average length of the female is about three-quarters of an 

 inch less than that of the male, but that the smallest .adult female was fully an inch and a half 

 shorter than the largest male. The difference in size is so marked that the natives noticed it and 

 insisted that the small females were not Aibwukia, but Niwilhriltik (Ereunetes pusilhts). 



They arrive about the end of May or early in June, and frequent the small ponds and marshy 

 portions of the tundra along the shore, sometimes associated with other small waders, especially 

 with the Buff-breasted Sandpipers on the high banks of Xuuava. Early in the season they are 

 frequently in large-sized flocks feeding together around and in the Eskimo village at Cape Smythe, 

 but later become thoroughly scattered all over the tundra. 



They begin pairing soon after their arrival, and are frequently to be seen chasing each other 

 in the air with a loud chatter. The male has a curious habit at this season of the year. The skin 

 of the, throat is much distended and loaded with slimy fat, and can be puffed out like the throat 

 of a pouter pigeon. During the breeding season, that is from the first of June to the first of July, 

 the male may frequently be seen taking short, low flights, with the wings held high and beaten 

 stifily, while the throat is puffed out to its fullest extent, and the bird utters a most peculiar 

 niiiiilcd hoot ''hoo, hoo, boo, hoo," many times repeated. There is something ventriloqnial about 

 the sound, which makes it seem as if uttered by some creature a long distance off, and it was some 

 time before we could be certain that it was the Pectoral Sandpipers that were making the noise. 

 This hoot is only uttered on the wing as far as I was able to observe, though the males may be 

 often scenic puff out their throats as they sit on the little knolls. 



They get their native name ^Aibirid-ia,"" the " walrus bird," from this habit of swelling out their 

 throats, like ^Aibvr&kJ* the walrus. 



After the breeding season, they keep very quiet and retired, like the rest of the waders, and 

 the adults appear to slip quietly away without collecting into flocks, as soon as the young are able 

 to take care of themselves. 



As soon as the young have assumed the complete fall plumage, that is about the 10th of 

 August, they gather in largo flocks with the other young waders, especially about the small ponds 

 on the high land below Cape Smythe, and stay for several days before they take their departure for 

 the south. Stray birds remain as late as the first week of September. 



The nest is always built in the grass, with a decided preference for high and dry localities like 

 the banks of gulleys and streams. It was sometimes placed at the edge of a small pool, but always 

 in grass and in a dry place, never in the black clay and moss, like the Plover and Buff-breasted 

 Sandpipers, or in the marsh, like the Phalaropes. The nest was like that of the other waders, a 

 depression in the ground lined with a little dry grass. 



All the complete sets of eggs we found contained four. The following is a description of the 

 eggs, obtained from the examination of eighteen sets. They are pointedly pyriform like those of 

 the other small waders. 



e. the above was written, Mr. E. \V. Nelson, formerly United States Signal Service observer at Saint Michael's, 

 'Alaska, lias published (Auk, Vol. I, No. 3, pp. 218-224) an excellent detailed account of the breeding habits of this 

 SHOCK'S, as observed by him in the delta of the Yukon. His observations agree very closely -with ours, except that 

 he observed the male bird "hooting" while on the ground. The observations of Dr. Adams, quoted by Mr. Nelson, 

 had ^ well as his. The note, however, merely states that drawings made by Dr. Adams, and 



representing the male bird with his throat pulled out, wore exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society, so that 

 to Mr. Nelson belongs the credit, of tirst making and publishing complete observations on the subject. 



