322 
REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 
the morning, often indeed till nearly noon. I think that the males alone are con¬ 
cerned in the production of these odd notes; hut of this I am not sure. 1 he sexes 
have a harsh call-uote in common which they utter as they fly casually about, which 
may be expressed by the syllables ka-kfi-ka-ka; thus very different from the musical 
scaip-scaip, so familiar to every sportsman. . .. . 
Other evidence is not wanting to show that our long-billed friend of skulking pro¬ 
clivities allows the events of the love season to quite turn his head, and various are 
the idiosyncrasies that take the place of his usual staid habits. One need not, then, be 
surprised upon putting him up in summer to find him alighting on a tree or fence-rail, 
and, so perched, to stand for long intervals as though rapt in deep meditation. 
In the region in question the snipe apparently begins to nest some time in May, and 
by the middle of June I found young not fully divested of the down. 
Several nests were found with the cracked egg-shells lying immediately about. 1 hey 
are usually built ou a tussock of grass, if indeed the term building is applicable to the 
slight structure made by bending down a few grass blades and adding a few bits of 
withered herbage. 
Tringa Linnaeus. 
T. minutilla Vieill. Least Sandpiper. 
Common during the migrations. 
Ereunetes Illiger. 
E. pusillus (L.). Semipalmated Sandpiper. 
As preceding. 
Totangs Bechstein. 
T. semipalmatus (Gmel.). Willet. 
Present about Washoe Lake in May, where it probably breeds, as it certainly does in 
many similar localities to the northward. 
T. melanoleucus (Gmel.). Greater Yellow Legs. 
Numerous as a migrant. Flocks of this species were seen on their way south as 
early as July 27. 
Tringoioes Bonaparte. 
T. macularius (L.). Spotted Sandpiper. 
A summer visitant throughout this region, although not very numerous. 
Numenius Linmeus. 
N. longirostris (Wils.). Long-billed Curlew. 
Numerous as a summer resident along the marshy borders of the large lakes, but 
most abundant during the fall migrations. In August the stubble-fields near Goose 
Lake were fairly dotted with these birds, busily at work hunting grasshoppers. 
TANTALIDBE—Ibises. 
Plegadis Kaup. 
P. guaranna (L.). Bronzed Ibis. 
This ibis has an extensive range in the west, it finding place as occurring at one 
season or another in nearly all the local lists of the country west of the Mississippi 
River. It reaches to the north as far as Southern Oregon, where it breeds. As the 
species was not found by Bendire about Camp Harney we may perhaps assume that the 
above is about its northern limit. Nowhere is it more abundant than in the region 
from the line of the railroad to Northern California and Nevada, being there fo7md 
in summer as an inhabitant of the tulle swamps on all the lakes large and small, 
except in the high mountains. 
Its general habits are much like those of the herons, and the marsh and slough are 
not more essential to the mode of life of the latter birds than of the glossy ibis. ° Dur¬ 
ing the migrations, it is true, flocks of ibises may be seen feeding in plain view in the 
open shallows along shore, but it is quite exceptional to find them in such situations 
during the breeding season. Apart from their habit of nesting among the rushes they 
seem to prefer the secrecy and solitude conferred on them by the sheltering reeds, and 
