50 Contributions from the Charleston Museum. 



101. Pisobia minutilla (Vieill.). Least Sandpiper. 



As a few individuals winter regularly, this diminutive species 

 can be considered a permanent resident. I have seen it in every 

 month of the year, though it does not breed. 



The birds arrive in numbers by the last week in April and sel- 

 dom tarry long during the northward migration. All of the 

 smaller species of shore birds are known on this coast as ' ' Sand 

 Chickens," and this species is best known to nearly all the in- 

 habitants of the coast. 



The Least Sandpiper seems to prefer beaches where there are 

 pools of water formed by the action of the tides, rather than the 

 mud flats. 



This species breeds to the northward of the United States. 

 Audubon found its nest containing four eggs on the 20th of July, 

 1833, in Labrador. 



102. Pelidna alpina sakhalina (Vieill.). Red-backed Sand- 

 piper. 



This winter visitant usually arrives from the north during the 

 first week in October and remains until May 25. The earliest 

 autumn record I have is September 30, 1901. It is a very hardy 

 bird and is apparently not inconvenienced by a temperature of 

 6° above zero. With the exception of the Western Sandpiper 

 (Ereunetes mauri), this species is the most common of all the 

 waders that winter on this coast. 



The birds that have wintered here begin to moult early in April, 

 and by May 10 they have acquired breeding plumage, and 

 migrate at once to their breeding grounds. I have yet to see a 

 specimen on this coast from May 25 until September 30. 



This species breeds abundantly at Point Barrow, Alaska, and 

 when it arrives on our coast scarcely a trace of the summer 

 plumage remains. 



103. Ereunetes pusillus (Linn.). Semipalmated Sandpiper. 

 I have never observed this species in the winter months, but 



it is exceedingly abundant in the spring and autumn migrations, 

 being found in company with the Semipalmated Plover and Red- 

 backed Sandpiper. The female of this species has the bill even 

 shorter than the male of E. mauri. When the birds arrive in 

 the spring they* are always in full breeding plumage, and by May 



