24 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA [No. i. 



som on July lo, '98. As no others were discovered by me in this vicinity, I can- 

 not but consider this a rare bird there. But at a point on the Arctic coast about 

 twenty miles northeast of Cape Prince of Wales, on June 27 and 28, '98, Red- 

 backed Sandpipers were numerous, and I secured both skins and eggs. The birds 

 were found scattered out on the tundras whence they could be flushed from their 

 nests or from where they had been feeding. One nest was a cup-shaped cavity 

 slightly lined with grasses and sunk into the top of a hummock of moss surrounded 

 by marshy ground. The two others found were similarly located except that they 

 were embedded in clumps of grass, and mostly hidden from view by the surround- 

 ing blades. Each nest contained four eggs. One was fresh but the other two 

 were considerably incubated. The eggs are peculiar, and different from those of 

 any other bird I have seen. The ground color is pale olive-butf, and the markings 

 are abruptly outlined against it. The spottings are of clay-color, bistre and burnt 

 umber, with shell markings of ecru drab. These spots and blotches are as a rule 

 oblong in shape, and the common direction of their trend is not in a direct longi- 

 tudinal line, as in eggs of J/)7«rr////.T, but with a spiral tendency. This spiral 

 trend is from left to right in every case, and it is most evident when the eggs are 

 viewed toward the larger ends. The most uniformity in this respect is in the 

 deeper shell-markings, for the bright bistre pigment spots, undoubtedly the last 

 to be secreted and deposited on the shell, do not so often have this trend. This 

 would seem to indicate that in the case of the Red-backed Sandpiper, the egg in its 

 advance along the oviduct, continued itsslow rotary right-to-left motion, even after 

 it had reached the shell and pigment-Secreting portion. This may not be the rule, for 

 Nelson who collected many eggs of this species, does not mention this character. 

 I have only ten eggs of the Red-backed Sandpiper, and eight of these exhibit the 

 spiral trend of the markings to a very noticeable degree, while in the other two it 

 is still distinguishable in the shell-markings, although the outside niaculation is 

 much confused. The markings on all the eggs are more numerous about the 

 larger ends. The average measurements of my ten eggs are 1.47x1.04. Extremes: 

 1. 60x1. 08, 1.37x1.02. They are subpyriform in shape. 



Eretinetzs pnsilhts (Linn.). 



Semipalmated Sandpiper. 



This was the prevailing form oi Ereunetes in the Kotzebue Sound and Kowak 

 River regions. In the neighborhood of our winter camp on the Kowak, I posi- 

 tively identified the first on May 29th, when an adult male was secured and 

 another seen. During June I observed a few pairs in the Kowak delta where I 

 was sure they were nesting. They were usually met with about wet, grassy 

 swales far out on the barren tundras, and not necessarily near any lake or pond. 

 At Cape Blossom the Semipalmated Sandpipers were very numerous, and around 

 the first of July, '99, I had plenty of opportunity for objerxnng them on their 

 breeding grounds. A few were to be found in the interior on damp, grassy flats, 

 but the strip of low meadow bordering the lagoon back of the Mission was by far 

 the most popular resort. Here the grass was short and as smooth as a lawn, with 

 occasional narrow branches from the main slough cutting their way back toward 

 the higher ground. In one part of this stretch of tide-flats, the sandpipers were 

 so numerous that as many as a dozen pairs were in sight at once, and their twit- 



