180 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vm. 



preceding day. The nest was just like that described by 

 Mr. Popham : a small and rather deep hollow in the 

 moss (see Plate 3). The four eggs were slightly incubated. 

 Compared with the clutch in Mr. Popham's collection, 

 the blotching, although similar, is less distinct and more 

 confluent. The eggs average 35.1 X 25.1 mm. in size. 



Howard Saunders, on the authority of Mr. Popham, 

 says of the Curlew-Sandpiper at the river's mouth : 

 " Even there the species was very scarce." As far as 

 the Golchika district is concerned, from what I saw in 

 1914 it would be quite justifiable to describe it as frequent. 

 It was certainly local, but wherever suitable habitat 

 existed there it was to be found. I saw two more birds 

 about half a mile from the first nest. They seemed to 

 be breeding, but owing to their wildness, and the entire 

 absence of covert on the fiat tundra, I failed to mark 

 down the nests. Later on, I picked up egg-shells and 

 saw several of the birds on the tundra on the south side 

 of the Golchika River. I foiuid young in down on 

 July 20th, out on the tundra about twenty miles east 

 of Golchika. It was a very wet foggy day. I was 

 driving on a reindeer-sledge with some natives, when 

 the old bird jumped up almost under the hoofs of the 

 deer, and I saw the chicks scuttling away through the 

 grass. Without taking my eye from the spot, I jumped 

 from the sledge, to the surprise of the Dolgan driver, 

 and caught two young birds before they could hide. 



These specimens, which are apparently two or three 

 days old, much resemble the young of the Dunlin, except 

 that the down of the throat and breast is more suffused 

 with rufous.* Compared with a young Dunlin in my 

 collection (which however is a good deal older) the pale 

 mottling on the top of the head is also more buff in 

 tint, but this may be an individual variation, for one 

 of the skins is decidedly deeper in tone than the other. 



* Since the above was written, I have compared more skins, and 

 find that this distinction does not always hold good. But even at 

 an early age the bill of the Curlew-Sandpiper differs from that of the 

 Dunlin, 



