2 20 Nelson oh the Pectoral Sa?idfi;per. [.T"ly 



of my surroundings and, rising upon elbow, listened. A few 

 seconds passed and again arose the note. A moment later and, 

 gun in hand, I stood outside the tent. The open flat extended 

 away on all sides with apparently not a living creature near. 

 Once again the note was repeated close by and a glance revealed 

 its author. Standing in the thin grass, ten or fifteen yards from 

 me, with its throat inflated until it was as large as the rest of the 

 bird, was a male Pectoral Sandpiper. The succeeding days gave 

 me opportunities to observe the bird, as it uttered its singular 

 notes under a variety of situations and at various hours of the day 

 or during the light Arctic night. The note is deep, hollow, and 

 resonant, but at the same time liquid and musical, and may be 

 represented by a repetition of the syllables tdd-i%^ ibb-ii-tbo-fi^ 

 tbb-it^ tbb-ii^ tdd-'d-tbb-'a-tbb-ii-tbb-ii. 



Befoi'e the bird utters these notes it fills the cesophagus with 

 air to such an extent that the breast and throat are inflated to 

 twice or more the natural size, and the great air-sac thus formed 

 gives the peculiar resonant quality to the note. 



The skin of the throat and breast becomes very flabby and 

 loose at this season, and its inner surface is covered with small 

 tubular masses of fat. When not inflated the skin, loaded with 

 this extra weight, and with a slight serous effusion which is 

 present, hangs down in a pendulous flap or fold, exactly like a 

 dewlap, about an inch and a half wide. The oesophagus is very 

 loose and becomes remai'kably soft and distensible, but is easily 

 ruptui"ed in this state, as dissection revealed. The male may 

 frequently be seen I'unning along the ground close to the female, 

 its enormous sac inflated and its head drawn back and the bill 

 pointing directly forwards ; or, filled with spring-time vigor, the 

 bird flits with slow but energetic wing-strokes close along the 

 ground, its head raised high over the shoulders, and the tail 

 hanging almost directly down. As it thus flies, it utters a 

 succession of the booming notes adverted to above, which have a 

 strange ventriloquial quality. At times the male rises twenty or 

 thirty yards in the air and, inflating its throat, glides down to the 

 ground with its sac hanging below ; again he crosses back and 

 forth in front of the female, pufiing out his breast and bowing 

 from side to side, running here and there as if intoxicated with 

 passion. Whenever he pursues his love-making his rather low 

 but far-reaching note swells and dies in musical cadence, and 



