222 SCOLOPACID,E : SNIPE, ETC. 



PURPLE SANDPIPER. 



Arquatella maritima {Briinn.) Bd. 



Chars. In form, differing from other Sandpipers in the shortness 

 of the legs ; tarsus shorter than middle toe and claw, or than 

 bill ; tibise feathered to the suffrago ; bill not quite straight. 

 Length about 900; extent about 16.00; wing, 5.00; tail, 2.60, 

 much rounded; bill, 1.20 ; tarsus, 0.8o-o.go ; middle toe, 1.00, or 

 a little more. In breeding-dress : Crown streaked with yel- 

 lowish-grj.y or grayish-white; scapulars and interscapulars 

 indented with dull buff or whitish, and tipped with white ; fore- 

 neck distinctly streaked with dusky; breast dull gray, spotted 

 with darker. In winter : Back and scapulars sooty-blackish 

 glossed with purplish, the feathers bordered terminally with dark 

 plumbeous-gray ; foreneck uniform mouse-gray, or brownish- 

 plumbeous. Rest of under parts white. 



The Purple Sandpiper is a species of circumpolar dis- 

 tribution, breeding only in the high north, as far as 

 polar explorers have gone, and migrating to temperate 

 lattiudes for the most part, though all individuals of 

 the species do not forsake the forbidding regions of 

 their birth even during the most inclement season. In 

 New England it is chiefly and properly a winter resident, 

 making its appearance after other migratory Sandpipers, 

 late in the fall, and remaining until the spring is fairly 

 advanced. It is not nearly so abundant as some of the 

 species, and is chiefly to be found singly or by twos 

 and threes, or in small flocks, on rocky shores. Hence 

 it is often called "rock" snipe or "rock plover." It 

 also merits its scientific name, maritima, as it is seldom 

 if ever found inland. The eggs, four in number, measur- 

 ing about 1.40 X 1. 00, are of the usual pyriform shape, of 

 clay-colored ground with an olive shade, boldly marked 



