BIRDS. 



109 



The skiu of the throat and breast becomes very flabby and loose at this season, and its inner 

 surface is covered with small globular masses of fat. When not inflated, the skiu loaded with this 

 extra weight and with a slight serous suffusion which is present hangs down in a pendulous flap 

 or fold exactly like a dewlap, about an inch and a half wide. The aesophagus is very loose and 

 becomes remarkably soft and distensible, but is easily ruptured in this state, as I found by dissec- 

 tion. In the plate accompanying this report the exteut and character of this inflation, unique at 

 least among American waders, is shown. The bird may frequently be seen running along the 

 ground close to the female, its enormous sac inflated, and its head drawn back and the bill poiutino- 

 directly forward, or, filled with spring-time vigor, the bird flits with slow l)ut 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 hollow booming notes, which have a strano-e 

 ventriloquial quality. At times the male rises 20 or 30 yards in the air and inflating its throat 

 glides down to the ground with its sac hanging below, as is shown in the accompanying plate 

 Again he crosses back and forth iu front of the female, puffing his breast out and bowing from 

 side to side, running here and there, as if intoxicated with passion. AYhenever he imrsues his 

 love-making, his rather low but pervading note swells and dies iu musical cadences, which form a 

 striking part of the great bird chorus heard at this season in the north. 



The Eskimo name indicates that its notes are like those of the walrus, heuce the term " walrus 

 talker." Since my return from the north my attention has been called to a note in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Zoological Society of Loudon (1859, p. 130), where it appears that Dr. Adams noted 

 the peculiar habits of this bird years ago when he passed a season at Saint Michaels. These Sand- 

 pipers were beginning to nest when I left the Yukon mouth, and in one instance a female was seen 

 engaged iu preparing a place for her eggs in a tuft of grass, but the spot was afterwards abandoned. 

 The nests taken by Mr. Murdoch each contained four eggs of the usual pyriform shape. They vary 

 in size as follows : 1.58 by 1.06 ; lAi by 1.11 ; 1.42 by 1.08 ; 1.54 by 1.02 inches. They have a drab 

 ground color, with a greenish shade in some cases, and are spotted and blotched with umber-brown, 

 varying in distribution on different specimens, as is usual among waders' eggs. In autumn its 

 habits in the north are precisely those so familiar to all who know the bird iu its southern haunts. 



The young birds in fall have the feathers of crown and entire upper parts edged with rusty 

 and buff; £ome of the feathers have white tips which, although genei'ally duller and less marked 

 than iu the ordinary acuminata, renders it very difficult to distinguish the birds by this character 

 alone. The larger bill and liroad pectoral baud of shaft markings and brown form the two most 

 distinct charijpters. 



For the purpose of comparison with acuminata I append the following list of measurements 

 of five specimens of maculata from Saint Michaels: 



Tringa fuscicollis Vieill. White-ruraped Sandpiper. 



Rare at Point Barrew, where Murdoch took two specimens. It breeds abundantly in the 

 Mackenzie River region, but the ]>reseut record is the first we have of its presence in Western 

 Alaska. 



Tringa bairdii (Ooues). Baird's Sandpiper. 



A single specimen of this species, a young bird in its first plumage, brought me in August, 

 1877, is the only in.^tanee known to me of its occurrence at Saint Michaels during my residence 

 there. 



