74 TJ. S. NATIONAL MUSEXJM BULLETIN 217 



The Nunamiut did not give me a name for stilt sandpipers. Our 

 failure to notice them more often may arise from our lack of 

 familiarity with these birds. I cannot believe, however, that many 

 have been present without attracting our attention. Even A. C. 

 Bent (1929) remarked that he could not give a general pattern for 

 their appearance in various localities, and like some other not un- 

 common birds, records of stilt sandpipers seem to provide no clear 

 track of their movements. I consider those which we have seen to 

 have been normal migrants, but they are not common and may not 

 appear in some years. 



Ereunetes pusillus (Linnaeus) 



27 males 



May 21- July 20 



weight (32), 20-29, 

 average 24 g. 



14 females 



May 20-July 24 



weight (10), 21-27, 

 average 26 g. 



5 downy yoimg 



June 26-27 





3 yomig males 



July 20-26 



weight 20.5, 19.1, 

 20.5 g. 



1 nest with 4 



June 12, 1949 





fresh eggs and 







male bird. 







1 nest with 4 



June 18, 1949 





largely incubat- 







ed eggs and male 





bird. 







Semipalmated sandpipers are the most common sandpipers. Large 

 numbers arrive in early May, but because of easy confusion with 

 least sandpipers, the earliest records may not be first arrivals. They 

 have been reported May 20, 1949, May 30, 1950, May 14, 1951, May 

 24, 1952, and May 27, 1954. The earliest five males to be collected, 

 between May 21 and May 23, were heavier than any males subsequently 

 taken, weighing from 26.0 to 29.4 grams, and were then certainly not 

 exhausted from their northward flight. 



Soon after arrival they spread over the marshy tundra, feeding 

 much by pools and lake edges and small streams, while the numbers 

 diminished as some of the migrants moved north. During early June 

 they are conspicuous as one, two, or several birds ascend rapidly some 

 200 feet in the air to circle about singing, and carrying out aerial 

 evolutions in alternate fluttering and soaring flight. The sweet Uva 

 liva song, faint in the distance, was indefinitely repeated without 

 variation or interruption, but because of the numbers and their 

 distance I could not tell how long each bird sustained its calling. As 

 I watched a pair on a sandy bank on Tuluak Creek, the one which 

 was more forward in its attentions called repeatedly in 15-second 

 runs, while the companion or mate called only occasionally in short 

 runs of a softer sound. Frequently I have heard them on the ground 

 calling only the two sounds, liA)a Uva. 



