BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 123 
The extreme variations in the measurements of individuals 
of the same species amongst the Limicoline birds is too well 
known to be questioned, but fifty against one settles it till 
another forty-nine shall arise to help him fight his battle over. 
The tinkering with the nomenclature of the birds has been the 
terror of the tyros. 
MICROPALAMA HIMANTOPUS (Bonaparte). (233.) 
STILT SANDPIPER. 
This Sandpiper was one of the first of my trophies in my early 
collections in the then Territory of Minnesota. In years after- 
wards, I had made many a collecting tour before I had this bird 
inhandagain. Since then for some twenty-five years, ithas been 
my good fortune to meet them many times, but not every sea- 
son of migration, nor even every year, and they are never com- 
mon. Coming to us in the night, as do all of the scolopaceous 
birds, they are easily overlooked for some time after their 
arrival in most cases, but through the long series of observa- 
tions I have recorded, I find that they have come under my 
notice on the average about the fifth of April. 
They remain but ashort time before the last have disap 
peared in a further northward movement. They come in 
small flocks, and keep mostly about shallow ponds, and along 
the smaller streams flowing through the marshes, but I have 
found them on the sandy beaches of some of the larger lakes 
on several occasions. Their food while here does not differ 
from that of most other species of the family. They are shy, 
and exceedingly vigilant, making it no easy matter to get 
them. By the last week in August they begin to return to us 
in appreciably larger numbers, and remain until about the first 
of November. I have no record later than October 27th. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Legs long, slender; toes slender, united at base with web, 
the outer of which is the larger; hind toe small; bill long, some- 
what arched, ‘slender, much compressed, expanded and flat- 
tened at the tip, which is minutely punctulated and corrugated, 
pointed; tail short, middle feathers longest, outer feathers 
frequently longer than the next, under coverts long; ]ower 
_ half of tibia naked; upper parts brownish-black, nearly all the 
feathers edged with ashy-white and yellowish-red; narrow 
band from above the eye to the occiput, bright brownish-red, 
inclosing the brownish-black of the top of the head; spot on 
the ears the same red; rump and upper tail coverts white, with 
transverse narrow stripes and pointed spots of brownish black; 
