Birds of Celebes: Charadriidae. 



777 



streaked with brown on sides, flanks and under tail-coverts; under wing-coverts 

 white, mottled with brown and white against metacarpal edge; bill blackish brown, 

 paler at base of lower mandible; "feet ochre-yellow, tinged with olive, and with darker 

 joints; iiis dark brown" (Stejneger f 3]; wing 127 mm; tail 50; tarsus 29; mid. 

 toe with claw 26.5; exposed culmen ca. 24 (Lunbotto: Meyer — C 1940). 



The specimen described is most hkely a female. Taczanowski describes the 

 female as having the russet on the top of the head less bright, the spots here and 

 on the neck and breast less intense, the middle of the breast largely unspotted. 



Young. It is described as having the upper-parts bright rusty ochi-aceous (not brownish 

 grey) with black centre-streaks, the under-parts tinted with isabelline, the striations 

 fewer and smaller. 



? Eggs. Taczanowski (30) quotes without comment a description by Meves of the eggs 

 (of this species?), but mentions, like Seebohm, that nothing of its nidification 

 is known. 



Distribution. East Siberia (Middend. etc. 30); Bering Id. (Stejneger f 3); Alaska (Nelson 

 fl, XVI, 20); Corea (Kalinowski 19); Japan (Blakiston, etc. 21); China (Swinh. 1, 

 David 6, etc.); Foi-mosa (Swinh. 2); India — Gilgit (Biddulph 9, 10); Phihppines 

 — Mindanao (Everett d 2); North Celebes — Limbotto (Rosenb. S, Meyer 4, 7, 13); 

 Java (Horsfield a 1, de Vriese 3); Ternate, Amboina, Ceram, Waigiou, Salawatti, 

 Aru, New Guinea (cf. Salvad. 11, 23); Austraha and Tasmania (cf. Ramsay 7<9); 

 Pelew Is. (Tetens 26); New Caledonia (Marie 26); New Zealand (Bulleri?). Has 

 occurred in Europe: England (Ground XXVIII). 



This far-ranging traveller was first recorded from Celebes by Meyer, who 

 got it at Lake Limbotto, curiously enough in July (7), affording another instance, 

 apparently, of birds staying out of the general migration. If Rosenberg's (8) 

 identification is correct, four examples were previously obtained by him at the 

 same spot. 



The breeding grounds of the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper are as yet unknown ; 

 probably they lie in parts of the east and north of Siberia and the arctic is- 

 lands still further north. Midden dor ff saw it on the south shore of the Sea 

 of Ochotsk in July, but in Bering Island Stejneger obtained it only during 

 the autumnal migration of 1882. It is known in China from the observations 

 of David, Sty an and De La Touche as a bird which passes by on migration; 

 such it is, too, according to Seebohm, in Japan. The migration probably passes 

 on through the East Indies to Australia, though the absence of records from 

 Borneo and Sumatra and the rarity of specimens from Celebes, Java and the 

 Philippines (as yet, apjiarently, there is one example from Mindanao only) may 

 possibly be due to the main body of the migrants holding a more eastern course 

 across the Pacific, a view which the occurrence of the bird in the Pelew Islands 

 and New Zealand seems to support. 



Far away from its proper territories a single adult individual was shot in 

 1892 on Breydon mudflats, Norfolk, by Mr. T. Ground, who found it in company 

 with a Ringed Plover and three or four Dunlins. The only specimen as yet 

 recorded from the Indian countries was killed in Gilgit by Major Biddulph; 

 it was flying with a number of Ruffs (Machetes ■pugnax). 



Meyer k Wiglesworth, Birds of Celebes (Dec. T">, 1S97). 98 



