BAIED SANDPIPER 373 



rather low but pervading note swells and dies in musical cadences, which form 

 a striking part of the great bird chorus heard at this season in the north 

 (Nelson, 1887, pp. 108, 109). 



The nest is always built in the grass, with a decided preference for high 

 and dry localities like the banks of gullies and streams. It was sometimes 

 placed at the edge of a small pool, but always in grass and in a dry place, 

 never in the black clay and moss. . . . The nest . . . [is] a depression in the 

 ground lined with a little dry grass. . . . 



In color and markings . . . the eggs closely resemble those of the other 

 small waders. The ground color is drab, sometimes with a greenish tinge, 

 though never so green as in the egg of P. alpina americana and sometimes a 

 pale bistre-brown. The markings are blotchings of clear umber brown, varying 

 in intensity, thickest and sometimes confluent around the larger end, smaller 

 and more scattered at the smaller end. Some of the eggs with brown ground 

 are thickly blotched all over. . . . All the eggs have the usual shell markings 

 of pale purplish gray and light neutral tint (Murdoch, 1885, pp. Ill, 112). 



The food of the Pectoral Sandpiper is quite varied. Taking the 

 eastern range of the bird into account, it includes billbugs, water 

 beetles, cutworms, corn-leaf beetles, wireworms and click beetles, 

 clover-root curculios, mosquitoes, larvae and adult horseflies, and 

 crane-fly larvae (McAtee, 1911a) ; worms, minute shellflsh, and occa- 

 sionally rootlets and buds (Goss, 1891, p. 170) ; and sea lettuce (Baird, 

 Brewer and Ridgway, 1884, I, p. 235). The flesh of this species is 

 highly prized as an article of food. In fact it is stated (Baird, Brewer 

 and Ridgway, loe. cit.) that "in the autumn its flesh becomes very 

 juicy and finely flavored, and when procured late in the season it is 

 said to be superior to that of any of our shore-birds, and fully equal 

 to any upland game." This is the smallest of the shore birds that 

 can be legitimately called a game species. Though the species is 

 obviously highly desirable, the small numbers occurring in California 

 debar it from a prominent place among the game birds of the state. 



Baird Sandpiper 



Pisdbia bairdi (Coues) 



Othek names — Tringa iairdi; Actodromas hairdi; Heteropygia hairdi. 



Description — Adults both sexes, in spring and early summer: Top of head 

 and hind neck broadly mottled with blackish brown on pale buffy or creamy 

 white ground; indistinct stripe from base of upper mandible to and behind 

 eye, whitish; below this a dark mottled stripe; eyelids white; chin and throat 

 white, minutely and sparingly flecked with dark brown; sides of head and 

 neck creamy white, flecked with narrow brownish shaft streaks, darkest and 

 most numerous on ear region; bill black; iris dark brown; feathers of upper 

 back extensively blackish brown, tipped with pale buffy; tertials brownish 

 black, broadly tipped with pale drab and many of the feathers with irregular 

 tawny spots on webs; lower back, rump, central upper tail coverts and middle 

 tail feathers, brown; outermost tail coverts mottled with whitish; outer tail 

 feathers drab; outer surface of closed wing brown, all of the feathers with 



