PECTOBAL SANDPIPER 371 



feet, and darker and more conspicuous breast band and streakings. 

 Juveniles of this species as compared with Baird Sandpipers of the 

 same age show a streaked rather than scaled appearance on the back. 

 From the Least and Western sandpipers it may be distinguished 

 chiefly on the basis of size, as it is twice or three times as large as 

 those species. The male Pectoral Sandpiper is distinctly larger than 

 the female, a reversal of size relation obtaining between the male 

 and female of many shore birds. 



The Pectoral Sandpiper is ordinarily a rather quiet species. Its 

 call-note is a harsh tweet or kreek. The latter note has in parts of 

 the East won it the name of "Kreeker." This note is ordinarily 

 uttered only once, but may be replaced by repeated shrill cries when 

 the bird is flushed suddenly. 



Torrey (1910a, pp. 44-45) records his brief experience with the 

 Pectoral Sandpiper at Santa Barbara as follows : 



On the morning of September 17, 1909, I found and watched at my leisure 

 a single bird of this species . . ., feeding in and about some small muddy 

 pools. . . . The next day it was still there, and after some time another one 

 walked into sight from behind a bunch of reeds. . . . [They] allowed me 

 the closest kind of approach, in a perfect light, so that all details were 

 abundantly seen: the greenish legs, the parti-colored bill, the black rump, and 

 the immaculate chin. . . . They neither bobbed nor teetered, but had a 

 plover-like trick of half squatting, or crouching, when startled. In running, 

 and now and then when standing still, they assumed a peculiarly erect attitude, 

 which gave them the appearance of being, for sandpipers, uncommonly long- 

 necked. 



Forbush (1912, p. 272) says of this species in Massachusetts: 



The Grass-bird usually comes in the night, in flocks of twenty-five to fifty 

 birds, and scatters in small parties in the salt marshes, particularly those on 

 which the grass has been cut and where little pools of water stand. It seems 

 to prefer the higher portions of the salt marsh, where the "black grass" grows, 

 and it is sometimes common in the fresh-water meadows near ponds in the 

 interior. . . . The grass pattern and shading of its back furnish such com- 

 plete protection from the eye of man that it can conceal itself absolutely by 

 merely squatting in the short grass. Where it has not been shot at or dis- 

 turbed it becomes exceedingly tame and confiding, but old experienced birds 

 are wild, and fly so swiftly and erratically that some of the hunters call them 

 "Jack Snipe" because of a fancied resemblance in their flight to that of 

 "Wilson's Snipe. Sometimes they are found in fresh meadows near the salt 

 marsh, and more rarely on the ocean beach, where they follow the retreating 

 wave like the Sanderling or any other beach bird. 



Stearns and Coues (1883, pp. 220, 221) state that "When they 

 arise from the grass to alight again at a little distance, they fly in 

 silence or with a single tweet, holding the wings deeply incurved; 

 but when suddenly startled and much alarmed, they spring quickly. 



