PURPLE SANDPIPER. 33 



more to the northward. August is the month of principal migra- 

 tion from Maine to South America, and this month also witnesses 

 the departure from the breeding grounds. The last one seen at 

 Floeberg Beach was August 29, 1875 (Feilden) ; Point Barrow, August 

 17, 1898 (Stone); Homer, Alaska, August 23, 1901; Winter Island, 

 Melville Peninsula, August 17, 1822 (Greely). During the summer 

 of 1822 the entire stay of the knot on Winter Island was only sixty- 

 two days — one of the shortest nesting periods of any species. 



Purple Sandpiper. Arquatella maritima (Briinn.). 



Breeding range. — The purple sandpiper is principally a bird of the 

 Old World, breeding on the Arctic coast and islands from north- 

 western Siberia to Iceland. In Greenland it is known on the east 

 coast to Shannon Island, latitude 75° N. (Schalow); and on the 

 west to Thank God Harbor, 81° 40' N. (Bessels); and probably it 

 breeds at least as far north as latitude 72°. A few were seen at Fort 

 Conger, on Grinnell Land (Greely) ; several at various times in the 

 fall around Wellington Channel (McCormick); and the species was 

 found common in summer on Banks (Armstrong) and Melville (Ross) 

 islands. The Banks Island record at latitude 74° N., longitude 

 118° W., marks the extreme northwestern range of the species. To 

 the westward of this it is replaced by couesi. The southern limit of 

 the breeding range appears to extend from the southern end of 

 Greenland to the base of the Melville Peninsula, and possibly to the 

 northern shores of Hudson Bay. The species breeds most commonly 

 on the shores of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. 



Winter range. — The purple sandpiper remains the farthest north 

 in winter of any of the shorebirds. It is said to winter sometimes 

 even in southern Greenland (Hagerup), and it is common in winter 

 from Nova Scotia (Sharpe) and New Brunswick (Macoun) southward 

 to the coast of Rhode Island (Howe and Sturtevant). It is a rare 

 but regular winter visitant to Long Island, New York (Dutcher), and 

 has occurred casually thence south to the Bermudas (Reid), Georgia 

 (Sennett), and Florida (Scott). The species is rare anywhere away 

 from the ocean, but has been noted a few times in the vicinity of the 

 Great Lakes. 



Spring migration. — Some dates of spring arrival are : Winter Island, 

 June 10, 1822 (Greely); Igloolik, June 14, 1823 (Greely); Cam- 

 bridge Bay, June 10, 1853 (Greely); Bay of Mercy, June 3, 1852 

 (Armstrong); Cumberland Sound, June 4, 1878 (Kumlien); Prince 

 of Wales Sound, Ungava, May 27, 1886 (Payne); west coast of 

 Greenland at latitude 72° N., May 29, 1850 (Sutherland). The last 

 usually desert the New England coast in March. 



Fall migration. — Occasionally a stray bird appears in September 

 on the New England coast, but the main flocks do not arrive until 

 52928°— Bull. 35—10 3 



