406 



THE FUR SEALS OP THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



also, that ornithologists generally have considered the presence of new feathers, 

 together with others more or less worn, on waders as evidence tending to prove the 

 renewal o- growth in such feathers without a molt. But it seems to me that a better 

 explanation is possible. As a rule waders acquire their summer plumage before they 

 migrate, though it may not be completely changed before they leave for their summer 

 habitat. If, for instance, molting is but half completed on the breast when the bird 

 obeys its seasonal instinct, then on its journey those feathers which are still in their 

 sheaths complete their growth, though often with less pigment, because the powers of 

 the bird are more necessary for its preservation during its journey; and no others 

 grow out, perhaps not during that summer. Again, as a rule, waders make very long 

 migrations, and spend but a very short time at their summer habitatj hence the 

 necessity for molting before they start or during the early stages, for later all their 

 time and strength are taken up in other affairs more important for the preservation of 

 the species. That feathers well worn, and some entirely unworn, together with 

 others in all intermediate stages of wearing, are found on waders taken near their 

 summer habitat is undoubtedly true, but their presence can be explained on the lines 

 laid down above. It is very rare indeed that pin feathers are found on such birds 

 when within several hundred miles of their summer home, esiDCcially on those which 

 have traveled over vast stretches of ocean during their long journey. Land-migra- 

 ting waders show greater molting changes than those species which move northward 

 over vast tracts of ocean. A fully molted spring specimen of baueriis rare, but not 

 so with lapponica. No. 62443, 9, May 16, 1872, St. Paul, H. W. E., is the reddest 

 breasted bird, few feathers of the winter plumage being left. ISfo. 62447, 9 , July 5, 

 1872, St. Paul, H. W. E., is one of the palest, few new breeding feathers having 

 appeared. No. 118843, 9 , June 11, 1890, St. Paul, W. P., has not a single feather of 

 the breeding plumage. The extreme sensitiveness of the bill of this bird is shown 

 by the character of their food as here shown. 



Stomach contents: "Much the greater part of the stomach contents of these 

 birds consisted of hundreds of minute threadlike aquatic larvae of a midge (Ghiro- 

 nomis). Pieces of mollusks' shell had been swallowed by several of the birds. Flies, 

 closely related to our common house fly, and tiger beetles were detected in small 

 quantities. Of the six godwits, five had been killed on St. Paul Island, and had 

 fed for the most part upon midges, which were probably abundant in a fresh-water 

 pond on the island. The sixth bird was taken on Walrus Island. It had caught 

 over five hundred specimens of a species of beetle {Aegialites debilis^), the sole repre- 

 sentative of a unique family of beetles, described some time ago and subsequently 

 lost sight of until recently discovered again." — S. D. J. 



Measvrements of eight specimens. 



' These beetles were quite common on the higher shelf rocks of Walrus Island. 



