154 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



with purplish gloss, the top of head streaked with rusty, the 

 scapulars and interscapulars widely bordered by a brighter 

 shade of the same; fore-neck and chest irregularly clouded 

 with pale buff or soiled white and sooty plumbeous, the breast 

 more coarsely clouded, with more or less of a blackish patch on 

 each side. Winter plumage : Hardly distinguishable from corre- 

 sponding stage of T. maritima, but lighter borders to feathers 

 of upper parts of a clearer, more bluish plumbeous, and the 

 grayish of the chest more varied or broken by white. Young : 

 Scapulars and interscapulars conspicuously bordered with bright 

 rusty, ochraeeous, and whitish ; wing-coverts broadly bordered 

 with pale buff or whitish ; breast and sides buffy white, streaked 

 with dusky. Downy young : Above bright rusty fulvous, irreg- 

 ularly marbled with black, the ornamental velvety flecks coarser 

 and less purely white than in T. maritima ; head light fulvous, 

 marked as in T. maritima; sides distinctly tinged with fulvous. 

 Length 7.50-9.00, wing 4.50-5.15 (4.86), culmen .98-1.25 (1.13), 

 tarsus .88-1.00 (.95). Eggs 1.46 X 1-00, pale olive-buff, varying 

 to light brownish buff, spotted longitudinally, and somewhat 

 spirally, with vandyke-brown, or deep umber, these darker 

 markings sometimes prevailing over the ground-color. Hab. 

 Aleutian Islands and coasts of Bering's Sea, north to Kowak 

 River, Alaska, west to Commander Islands, Kamtschatka. 



236. T. couesi Bidgw. Aleutian Sandpiper. 

 <P. Larger and lighter colored. Summer adult : Top of head broadly 

 streaked with buff; scapulars and interscapulars widely bor- 

 dered with bright ochraeeous or ochraceous-rufous ; fore-neck 

 and chest pure white, sparsely streaked with brownish gray ; 

 breast white, streaked anteriorly and clouded posteriorly with 

 dusky, the latter forming more or less of a patch on each side. 

 Winter plumage : Above light plumbeous or ashy, the scapulars 

 and interscapulars darker centrally and with paler borders; 

 wing-coverts edged with pure white; chest with white pre- 

 vailing. Young : Similar to corresponding stage of T. couesi, 

 but colors much paler, with light borders to feathers of back, 

 etc., broader, the dark centres correspondingly decreased. 

 Downy young : Similar to that of T. couesi, but paler in color, 

 the dark streaks on lores not reaching to the eye. Length 

 about 9.50-10.00, wing 5.00-5.40 (5.16), culmen 1.15-1.45 (1.33), 

 tarsus .95-1.00 (.98). Eggs 1.50x1-07, light brownish buff, 

 heavily spotted with rich vandyke-brown and clouded with 

 purplish gray. Hab. Prybilof Islands, Bering's Sea; adjacent 

 coast of Alaska, south of Norton Sound, in winter. 



237. T. ptilocnemis Coues. Prybilof Sandpiper. 



