SCOLOPACIDJE — THE SNIPE FAMILY — ARQUATELLA. 
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blackish ; nape light fulvous, mixed with pale grayish, narrowly and indistinctly streaked. An 
indistinct loral stripe (this sometimes obsolete), and auriculars, pale grayish fulvous, finely and 
indistinctly streaked ; rest of the head, including a superciliary stripe, and entire lower parts, 
white, the jugulum usually (in highest plumage) washed with ochraceous, and (always?) streaked 
with dusky ; breast blotched with dusky, the blotches usually coalesced into an irregular large 
patch, sometimes covering the whole breast ; flanks and under tail-coverts marked sparsely with 
very narrow shaft-streaks of dusky. Inner border of the wing spotted with light grayish, and 
under primary coverts very pale ash-gray. Adult, winter plumage : Wings, rump, tail-coverts, tail, 
and posterior lower parts as in the summer plumage. Remaining upper parts continuous light ashy 
plumbeous (many shades lighter than in A. maritima), the feathers of the back and the scapulars 
darker centrally, and with a very faint purplish gloss in certain lights. Head light grayish, darker 
and almost unbroken on the pileum, lighter and streaked with white elsewhere, the throat white, 
and but sparsely streaked. Jugulum and breast white, irregularly marked with pale ash-gray. 
Young, first plumage : Above, very similar to the summer dress of the adult, but the wing-coverts 
widely bordered with pale buff; head and neck also very similarly colored. Jugulum pale buff, 
distinctly marked with short streaks and sagittate marks of dusky gray. Downy Young ; Above, 
bright tawny fulvous, irregularly marbled with black, the back and rump bespangled with downy, 
dot-like flecks of yellowish white ; the nape nearly uniform light fulvous grayish ; forehead pale 
buff, with a very narrow medial streak of black, reaching nearly to the bill, and extending pos- 
teriorly into the fulvous of the crown and occiput, which is irregularly marbled, longitudinally, 
with black ; a narrow black loral streak reaching about half way to the eye, with a still narrower 
rictal streak. 
Total length, about 9.50 inches ; wing, 5.00-5.40 ; culmen, 1.15-1.45 ; tarsus, .95-1.00 ; middle 
toe, .85-98. 
Although, at first sight, this Sandpiper seems very distinct from A. maritima and A. Couesi, 
especially the latter, the apparent differences become greatly reduced upon the careful examination 
of a large series of specimens. The dimensions, while averaging considerably greater (except as 
regards the feet), are yet found to inosculate with those of that species, while the difference in 
plumage, as compared with A. Couesi, proves to be solely one of intensity of colors — the lighter 
tints prevailing in ptilocnemis, the darker ones in Couesi. The exact correspondence of pattern of 
coloration between the two extends to every stage of plumage, even including the downy chick. 
We therefore, all things considered, look upon the present bird as being merely a local insular race 
of a species of which A. Couesi represents the resident form of the coast of Alaska and the Aleutian 
Chain, and from which A. maritima is perhaps not specifically distinct. 
For what little we know of the habits of this newly discovered species we are 
indebted to Mr. Henry W. Elliott, who found a few breeding on the Prybilof Islands. 
In his brief account of its manner of life he states that it was the oidy Wader that 
he found breeding on these islands, with the marked exception, now and then, of 
a stray pair of Lobipes hyperboreus. It is said to make its appearance early in 
May, and to repair to the dry uplands and mossy hummocks, where it breeds. Its 
nest is simply a cavity in a bunch of moss, in which the bird deposits its four darkly 
blotched pyriform eggs, hatching them out within twenty days. 
The young come from the shell clothed in a thick yellowish down, with dark-brown 
markings on the head and back, but taking on the plumage of their parents, and 
being able to fly as early as the 10th of August ; and at that season old and young 
flock together for the first time, and confine themselves to the sand-beaches and surf- 
margins about the islands for a few weeks, when they take flight, leaving the islands 
from about the 1st to the 5th of September, and disappearing until the opening of 
the new season. 
Mr. Elliott describes this bird as a most devoted and fearless parent, and states 
that he has known it to flutter in feigned distress around by the hour, uttering a low 
piping note when its nest was too nearly approached. It also makes a sound exactly 
