go THE NIDOLOGIST 
But however the controversy may termi- 
nate, the bird which forms its subject is 
found here frequenting the occasional 
clumps of stunted timber .and patches of 
brush growing under thé rugged bank of 
small lake or coulee. In such a spot on 
July 17, 1895, I took the nest of what Iam 
content to call Traill’s Flycatcher. 
Four feet up in the upright crotch of a 
thorn apple bush growing at the margin of 
a running coulee, one side impaled on a 
long thorn, the nest presented a slovenly 
appearance from the outside, being com- 
posed of a great variety of fuzzy material, 
including weed stalks, weed and flax fibre 
and thistle down, while the walls were 
thick, compact and deeply cupped, and the 
inside lining was neatly fiuished off with 
the fine, spray-like filaments of the heads 
of red-top grass, with two or three tiny 
feathers. It contained but two eggs about 
.76x.52, of creamy white, faintly dotted, 
mostly toward the greater end, with a few 
small scattering specks of brown and pale 
lilae, incubated beyond my skill to save at 
the time. 
The birds seemed very shrinking and 
timid, and would quickly retire out of 
sight in the thickets whenever I approached, 
occasionally uttering a soft note difficult to 
describe. 
On first discovering this nest and noting 
the apparently incomplete set, after vainly 
trying to observe the owner satisfactorily, 
I left the spot, and returning two days 
later and finding no change, settled down a 
few yards away with my glass for perhaps 
an hour, and upon each return of the bird 
to the nest I sought to gain something 
more than a transient glimpse. Failing in 
this I repeatedly chased her about the little 
thicket, no more than a dozen yards square, 
but dissolving views were all I succeeded 
in obtaining, and when it had become pro- 
bable that I should drive her away entirely 
I reluctantly used the gun and carried her 
away, with a sprig of the thorn apple hold- 
ing nest and eggs. 
The Bartramian Sandpiper (B. Jongz- 
cauda) is a characteristic prairie species, 
and an abundant breeder hereabouts. Ex- 
cept in structure and appearance there is 
little about this species to suggest the 
Sandpiper family, and they seem to avoid 
the wet and the marsh for which nature 
has apparently so well adapted them, and 
have become strictly an upland bird, as in- 
dicated in one of their popular names, “Up- 
” 
land Plover.’”’ Their gentle, confiding de- 
meanor, soft, liquid, whistling notes, and 
their general absence of disagreeable fea- — 
tures make this species a general favorite, 
and probably has much to do with the fact 
that they are rarely molested or shot, for 
whatever may be the custom elsewhere, 
they are not regarded in the light of a 
game bird here. 
If not already paired upon their arrival 
in mid-spring they become so at once, and 
are never seen in bunches. 
From two to four weeks are apparently 
happily idled away, for I find that June 4 
is my earliest record of a full set taken. 
When flushed these birds fly but a short 
distance, and when settling down upon the 
prairie have a pretty habit of holding both 
wings raised a moment, the points nearly 
meeting overhead, giving utterance at the 
same time to their long, drawn-out, plain- 
tive whistle. 
Their nest is small and a shallow depres- 
sion in the ground on the open prairie 
scantily lined with fragments of dried grass. 
The eggs number four, are pyriform and 
so large (about 1.70x1.25) as compared 
with the nest that when arranged 
with small end towards the center, 
they rest partially on their points. Few 
eggs when taken fresh present happier 
combinations of tint and coloration. The 
ground is a warm, light creamy-brown or 
wholesome clay, speckled or dotted and 
blotched with rich umber-brown and paler 
shell markings of lavender and lilac. 
To discover the nest of this species in 
any other way than by flushing the bird ac- 
cidentally after incubation has commenced 
would seem very unusual. I have never 
surprised the birds in nest-building, nor do 
I feel certain that I ever saw it approach 
its nest or leave it except when flushed. . 
After incubation has commenced, however, 
the female isa very close sitter, and will 
permit herself to be almost trodden on be- 
fore leaving the nest. Once walking abreast 
with wife and children on a sandy ridge to 
cover as widea strip as possible, a Bar- 
tramian flushed from under the very skirts 
ot my little girl, startling her sorely by its 
sudden, sprawling flutter off the nest. 
Four times since while driving on the 
prairie sitting birds have flushed from un- 
der my cart after the horse bad passed over 
the nest, in one case the bird flying out, as _ 
near as I could judge 
of the wheel. 
, between the spokes 
The familiar pretense of a/ 
