486 - BIRDS—SCOLOPACIDA. 
In nearly every instance, during their migration, single birds are met 
with, though late in the fall they sometimes frequent the muddy borders 
of streams in the company, apparently unsolicited by them, of other 
Sandpipers. On most occasions, with us, they are rather shy and wary, 
taking flight while the intruder is at long gun-shot range, and usually 
flying to a considerable distance before alighting. Sometimes, however, 
if no desirable feeding spot is near, they return to the same spot and re- 
sume their occupation as if they had forgotten the interruption. Very 
often the first indication of their presence is their alarm note which 
resembles that of the Water Thrush, but is shriller and louder, sounded 
as they mount to their high and rapid flight. 
IT have seen the Solitary Sandpiper here during all the summer months, 
and once found the young in the care of their parents, on the borders of 
a small pond, in a pasture surrounded by woodland, four or five miles 
south of this city. An egg, presented to me by Mr. O Davie, which was 
taken in an open field bordering the Scioto River, near this city, though 
without any positive claims, possesses characters which entitle it to 
consideration, as possibly that of this species. It is of a pointed oval 
shape, and not nearly so pyriform as are the eggs of most of this family, 
and measures 1.25 by 88, so that it is smaller than the eggs of the 
Spotted Sandpiper. The ground color is clay-color with a reddish tinge, 
thickly marked with reddish and blackish-brown. The nest was on the 
ground in as exposed a locality as is ever frequented by this bird. It 
contained two eggs, both far advanced in incubation, only one of which 
was preserved. The fragments of this egg are now in the collection of 
the Smithsonian Institution. Concerning the eggs of this bird, Dr. Coues 
(Birds of the Northwest, p. 499) says: 
‘The only eggs supposed to be of the Solitary Tattler I have seen, are two in the 
Smithsonian collection from Cleveland, Ohio (Dr. Kirtland). The size 1.50 by 1.05; the 
shape ordinarily pyriform. The ground is clay-colored, without olivaceous or other 
shades The markings are heavy and numerous on the larger half of the egg, smaller 
and fewer elsewhere. They are very dark—quite blackish-brown—lacking the slightest 
shade of the rich umber or chocolate which most waders show more or less evidently. 
The shell-spots are similarly of a darker neutral tint than usual. The indentification of 
these eggs, however, is open to question : they may be those of the Killdeer.”’ 
Dr. Brewer (Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, i1i, 1878, 197), gives the following 
description, the only authoritative account which I have seen: 
“The egg of this species has remained, to the present time, an unknown and much- 
desired addition to our cabinets. From time to time eggs claimed to be of this bird 
have been described, or have had a nominal existence in collections. But these claims 
have always been open to suspicion and doubt. The egys have all either had so strong 
a resemblances to either the Spotted Tattler (Zringoides macularius) or to that of the 
