Mar., 1921 THE PRIBILOF SANDPIPER 53 
hours before the guard would go there. In the meantime it may fly half a mile 
away and forget to come back, even to tease the hopeful collector lying con- 
cealed in the mist and fog behind some cheerless rock. No definite range can 
be ascribed to any one pair of birds because those off the nests mingle indis- 
criminately. Very often a bird will fly completely out of the range of vision 
in the fog. 
The best plan to follow in the search for nests seemed to be to just walk 
and hunt, and several factors combine to make the task difficult and discour- 
aging. In the first place the incessant fog and mist settle on the lenses of 
those obliged to wear spectacles and vision is clouded very quickly; the same 
thing prevents the use of field glasses to any but a very limited extent. The 
nesting sites are from two to eight miles from the habitations and the inter- 
vening country is very rough and difficult to traverse. Moreover, ‘‘hiking”’ is 
not always enjoyed when one must be encumbered with hip boots, oil-skin and 
sou ’wester, the only means of keeping dry. 
Sometimes a bird will leave the nest when one is ten or even fifteen feet 
away, but usually it must be almost stepped on before it will fly. Being the 
same color as the tundra it is almost invisible until it moves. Partch located a 
nest with three eggs in 1920 and carefully marked it by placing two piles of 
moss in range with the nest. Upon returning later we were unable to locate it 
although we knew within ten feet the exact position. We decided to give it 
up, but later in the day when we were passing close by we decided to take an- 
other look. This time the bird was flushed when we were several feet away 
and there we saw our tracks from the earlier search not twelve inches from 
the nest. 
The action of a bird leaving a nest is unmistakable and can always be rec- 
ognized, once it is learned. It is a quick, excited, jerky flight, very close io 
the ground, and the bird goes but a very few yards until it feigns injury in its 
endeavor to entice the intruder away. It will always flutter in front of a per- 
son, even though he walk directly toward the nest. 
When the bird is seen to fly the eggs are even more inconspicuous and 
difficult to find unless the exact spot from which it flew be located. Cromp- 
ton thus flushed a bird which he knew had a nest, but he was at a loss to find 
it. At last he left his cane as nearly as possible where the nest should have 
been and repaired to a nearby rock to watch and wait. In a few minutes the 
bird returned to the eggs, which were located about a yard from the stick. 
When a bird is flushed from a nest it seldom happens that the other parent is 
near. 
The nest is a mere depression about three and a half inches wide by two 
and a half inches deep. Most of the material is removed, but it is evidently 
packed down to a certain extent. No foreign material is carried at all. The 
nest is usually, but not necessarily, on some very slightly elevated ground and 
among the lichens called ‘‘reindeer moss’’. Some nests have been found where 
there was an admixture of Hypnum moss and again where the dwarf willows 
creep, root-like, beneath the surface. 
The normal set of eggs consists of four. A greater number has never been 
found and a less number only when it was uncertain if the full set had been 
laid. As much as three days may intervene between ege laying, but usually 
the four are deposited on successive days. When one set of eggs is taken an- 
other will be laid. But the same nest is not used the second time, the conten- 
