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Volume XIX May-June, 1917 Number 3 



THE HOME LIFE OF THE BATRD SANDPIPER 



By JOSEPH DIXON 



WITH MAP AND FIVE PHOTOS 



THE BAIRD Sandpiper (Pisobia bairdi) is certainly an "extremist" in its 

 conception of the proper places at which to spend the different seasons of 

 the year, for it breeds entirely within the Arctic Circle, and passes the 

 winter in southern South America. In the United States it occurs merely as 

 a passing migrant in spring and fall. The present author became acquainted 

 with the species in its summer home during the seasons of 1913 and 1914, which 

 he spent in the heart of its summer habitat, on the two hundred mile stretch of 

 Arctic coast extending westward from the mouth of the Mackenzie River. 

 Notes and photographs secured at that time are used in the following account 

 of the bird; for permission to use this material the w T riter is indebted to Mr. 

 John E. Thayer, who met the cost of the field work whereby it was obtained. 

 He is further indebted to Mr. Thayer and to Mr. Samuel Henshaw, Curator of 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology, for the photographs of the two sets of eggs 

 (figs. 27 and 28). These specimens, taken upon this same expedition, are now in 

 the collection of the above named institution. 



Specimens of the Baird Sandpiper have been taken in winter at 13,000 feet 

 elevation in the mountains of northern Chile, in Argentina, and in Patagonia. It 

 is said to remain in its winter home until the last of March (Cooke, Biol. Surv, 

 Bull. 35, 1910, p. 39). When it starts on its northward journey to the shore of 

 the Polar Sea the route followed in traversing northern South America appears 

 to be unknown, for the species is practically lost sight of until its arrival on the 

 Gulf coast of Texas. Here it has been reported as of common occurrence from 

 early in March to the middle of May. 



The main migration route to the breeding ground may be said to lie between 

 the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. There 

 are comparatively few spring records from the Pacific Coast of North America, 



