394 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



YELLOW/LEGS. 



A. O. U- No. 255. (Totanusflavlpes.)) 



RANGE. 



Found throughout North America. Except for an occasional pair 

 that remain to breed in the central portions of the United States, they 

 breed north of our borders. 



DESCRIPTIONS. 



Length about 10 in.; extent, 20 in.; tail, 2.5 in. Except for size, the 

 Lesser Yellow-legs is identical in plumage to the Greater Yellow-legs. 

 Upperparts blackish, or dark grayish, specked with white; head and 

 neck streaked with white and gray. Upper tail coverts mostly white; 

 tail barred with white; underparts white, streaked on the breast and 

 flanks with dusky, generally in the shape of arrowheads. The winter 

 plumage varies but little from the summer, being somewhat lighter on 

 the back and with fainter breast markings. 



NEST AND EGGS, 



Yellow-legs nest about the 1st of June, laying their three or four 

 eggs in a tuft of grass, within which a few dried grasses have been 

 wound in the semblance of a nest. The eggs have a grayish or buff 

 background and are boldly blotched with varying shades of brown with 

 fainter shell markings of lilac. 



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HABITS. 



These birds are chiefly migrants within the United States, large num- 

 bers of them passing through in the fall and fewer returning to their 

 breeding grounds in the spring. Those that neglect to return with 

 their comrades on the march northwards are the luckless individuals 

 that have fallen victims to the aim of the sportsmen, for these waders 

 are among those that are much sought by those who delight in killing. 

 They travel in flocks, sometimes in company with their larger and al- 

 most identical relative, the Greater Yellow-legs. They are easily called 

 to decoys by an imitation of their whistle. The hunter who is con- 

 cealed behind a blind, waits until the flock is about to settle among the 

 crude decoys which are perched out on the sand, and then'_:with*a well 

 directed shot, kills or maims sometimes several at a time. Very often 



