THE OOLOQIST 



181 



though at times letters and communi- 

 cations must of necessity lie un- 

 answered for as much as thirty days. 

 This without any intentional lack of 

 courtesy on our part. 



An Unusual Set of Eggs of the Black- 

 Necked Stilt. 



Himantopus mexicanus (Muller). 



Throughout all the overflowed pas- 

 ture lands near Fresno, California, 

 one of the most common and by far 

 the most conspicuous birds is the 

 Black-necked Stilt. Arriving usually 

 in early April and remaining only un- 

 til September this species can be con- 

 fidently looked for at any time during 

 the summer months. 



About seven miles from Fresno is a 

 twenty, acre pasture with a depression 

 in one end that always holds some 

 water. Late in the fall it is shallow 

 and stagnant but earlier in the season 

 a pond is formed that is often four or 

 five acres in extent. Here I have found 

 the Stilts earlier than at any other 

 place in the valley and here, too, they 

 remain later in the summer. 



Around this pond a colony of fifteen 

 or twenty pairs of the long-legged 

 black and white waders have nested 

 year after year and have furnished me 

 many pleasant experiences while 

 studying their nesting habits. On 

 May 11, 1914, while passing this pond 

 in an auto, I noticed that several birds 

 were occupying nests built out in the 

 salt grass at the east end of the pond, 

 but as I neared the west end only two 

 stilts could be seen on nests. One of 

 these was on a little island some dist- 

 ance out in the water. I had no de- 

 sire to disturb these birds and was in 

 somewhat of a hurry so paid little at- 

 tention to this bird. 



The other nest was on a small point 

 of land not ten feet from the roadside 

 and as the owner was sitting in a most 

 unconcerned manner, I knew that she 



was covering a set of eggs. Then the 

 possibility of finding a new type of 

 markings came to mind so I stopped 

 the machine and started to get out 

 and investigate but at the first move 

 in her direction the bird arose and 

 stalked away with notes of protest, re- 

 vealing to my gaze the only set of 

 five eggs of this species that I have 

 ever discovered. 



The following day I returned with 

 a camera and secured a small photo- 

 graph of the nest and eggs. This nest 

 was much more elaborate than is 

 usual with this species, being a well 

 built, saucer-shaped structure, compos- 

 ed entirely of weathered and bleached 

 grass stems. The five eggs were about 

 half incubated and were remarkably 

 uniform in size, shape, coloration and 

 markings. 



In view of the circumstances sur- 

 rounding the finding of this set and 

 the actions of the birds in the colony, 

 I think there is hardly a possibility 

 that more than one female contributed 

 to this complement of eggs. The dif- 

 ferent pairs in this colony have al- 

 ways shown a tendency to scatter 

 their nest over a large area and it is 

 only on rare occasions that I have 

 found two nests placed close together. 

 John G. Tyler. 



Semipalmated Sandpiper. 



While on a day's vacation on the 

 Canadian side of Lake Erie about 

 eighteen miles from Buffalo in the lat- 

 ter part of August, strolling along the 

 sandy and gravelly beds, I had the 

 good fortune to observe three or four 

 flocks of Semipalmated Sandpiper on 

 their migration to the Gulf States 

 down to Brazil. 



As far as we know, they breed in the 

 Arctic Regions. 



In the First Vol. of Birds of New 

 York, N. Y. State Museum in Albany, 

 Director John M. Clark gives a full de- 



