BIRDS — SCOLOPACIDJE. 



Common spring and fall migrant, but more numerous in fall than in 

 spring. The Greater Telltale is generally found in pairs, less often in 

 small flocks, on the gravelly or locky banks of streams. Its association 

 with other Sandpipers is merely aceidental. In the Eastern States it 

 appears to be much more wary than with us, and it is said to give warn- 

 ing to ducks and other game birds of the approach of the gunner. With 

 us it is not difi&cult to approach, while its large size, harsh scream , and 

 singular habit of tipping or jerking its body backward and forward on 

 its long legs, render it & conspicuous object. 



Mr. Nelson (Bulletin of the Easex Institute, viii, 1876, 128), gives the 

 following, the only account of their nesting which I have seen. , The 

 locality is in the State of Illinois : 



' ' In Jnne, 1875, I found several pairs of these birds abont the Calumet Marshes, where, 

 from their aotionB, I was certsin they Trere breeding, but was not fortunate enough to 

 find their nests. The 10th of Jnne, 1876, Mr. Kioe observed a pair abont a prairie slough 

 near Evanston. A few days later a sat of four eggs were brought him from a similar 

 situation a few miles northwest of that place, and from the description of the parent 

 bird — driv»n from the nest — he decided they must belong to this species. I parfectly 

 agree with Mr. Eice's decision, for the prominent oharacteristios noticed by the collector 

 are obviously applicable to this bird. 



The nest was sitnated in a slight depression at the base of a small hillock near the 

 border of a prairie slough, and was composed of grass stems and blades. The eggs meas- 

 ure respectively 1.70 by 1.20 ; 1.72 by 1.31 ; 1.74 by 1.31 ; 1.80 by 1.38 inches. The 

 ground color is a deep grayish- white, mark«d on three eggs with spots of dark-brown, 

 and on the other egg with spots and well-defined blotches of a considerably lighter 

 shade of the same. In addition there are shell markings and obsonred spots of lilac. 

 The markings are disposed quite abundantly over the surface of the egg, but are more 

 numerous about th» large end." 



ToTANus FLAviPES (Gm.) VieiUot. 



"VelloTr-staiilis, 



Totanus flavipes, KirtlaM), Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1838, 161.— Whkaton, Food of Birds, 

 etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 573 ; Reprint, 1875, 13.— Langdon, Cat. Birds of Gin. 

 1877, 15 ; Revised List, Joum. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 183 ; Reprint, 17 ; Sum- 

 mer Birds, ib., iii, 1880, 227. 



Ganibetla flavipts, Wheaton, Okie Agric. R«p. for 1860, 369 ; Reprint, 1861, 11. 



ScolopaxJUmpta, Gmeuk, Syst. Nat., i, 1788, 659. 



Toianui flamp*!, Veeili-ot, Nonv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., 1816, 400. 



Crambettaflampes, Bonaparte, Comp. Rend., 1856. 



A minature of the last ; colors precisely the same ; legs comparatively longer ; bill 

 groored rather further. Length, under 12; wing, under 7; tail, under 3; bill, under 

 2 ; tarsus, about 2 ; middle toe and claw, and bare tibia, each IJ. 



Habitat, Western Hemisphere. Breeds from the Northern States northward. Many 

 winter in the Southern States. Accidental in Europe. 



