Part 2

The egg dates are the condensed results of a mass of records taken from the data in a large number of the best egg collections in the country, as well as from contributed field notes and from a few published sources. They indicate the dates on which eggs have been actually found in various parts of the country, showing the earliest and latest dates and the limits between which half the dates fall, the height of the season.

The plumages are described in only enough detail to enable the reader to trace the sequence of molts and plumages from birth to maturity and to recognize the birds in the different stages and at the different seasons. No attempt has been made to fully describe adult plumages; this has been already well done in the many manuals. The names of colors, when in quotation marks, are taken from Ridgway’s Color Standards and Nomenclature (1912) and the terms used to describe the shapes of eggs are taken from his Nomenclature of Colors (1886 edition). The heavy-faced type in the measurements of eggs indicate the four extremes of measurements.

Many of those who contributed material for former volumes have rendered a similar service in this case. In addition to those whose contributions have been acknowledged previously, our thanks are due to the following new contributors: Photographs, notes, or data have been contributed by E. G. Alexander, C. M. Beal, W. W. Bennett, A. D. Boyle, W. J. Brown, M. H. Burroughs, J. J. Carroll, N. W. Cayley, Ralph Chislett, W. M. Congreve, S. J. Darcus, H. G. Deignare, Jonathan Dwight, F. F. Gander, T. S. Gillin, W. E. Glegg, S. P. Gordon, Frank Grasett, R. W. Harding, L. L. Haskin, E. A. Hyer, T. A. James, F. Kermode, H. M. Laing, Carl Lien, G. H. Lings, Julian Lyder, S. H. Lyman, M. J. Magee, Miss M. E. McLellan, F. C. Pellett, R. T. Peterson, H. H. Pittman, C. A. Proctor, J. C. Salyer, A. W. Schorger, Althea R. Sherman, L. W. Smith, E. L. Sumner, jr., Malcolm Taylor, jr., R. M. Thorburn, C. H. Townsend, Josselyn Van Tyne, Stanton Warburton, jr., Alexander Wetmore, F. N. Wilson, L. R. Wolfe.

Receipt of material from over 275 contributors has been acknowledged in previous volumes.

Through the courtesy of the Biological Survey, the services of Frederick C. Lincoln were again secured to compile the distribution paragraphs. With the matchless reference files of the Biological Survey at his disposal and with some advice and help from Dr. Harry C. Oberholser, his many hours of careful and thorough work have produced results far more satisfactory than could have been attained by the author, who claims no credit and assumes no responsibility for this part of the work.

Dr. Charles W. Townsend has contributed the life histories of two species; the Rev. Francis C. R. Jourdain has furnished valuable notes for two, has written nine new life histories and two of his have been transferred from the previous volume; and Dr. Winsor M. Tyler has contributed two life histories. The author is much indebted to Dr. Charles W. Richmond for many hours of careful and sympathetic work in reading the proof and correcting errors in this and all previous volumes; his expert knowledge has been of great value.

As most of the shore birds are known to us mainly, or entirely, as migrants, it has seemed desirable to describe their migrations quite fully. As it is a well-known fact that many, if not all, immature and nonbreeding shore birds remain far south of their breeding ranges all summer, it has not seemed necessary to mention this in each case. Nor did it seem necessary to say that only one brood is raised in a season, as this is a nearly universal rule with all water birds.

The manuscript for this volume was completed in April, 1928. Contributions received since then will be acknowledged later. Only information of great importance could be added. When this volume appears, contributions of photographs or notes relating to the Raptores should be sent to

THE AUTHOR.

LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN SHORE BIRDS

ORDER LIMICOLAE (PART 2)

By ARTHUR CLEVELAND BENT Of Taunton, Massachusetts

Family SCOLOPACIDAE, Snipes and Sandpipers

TRINGA SOLITARIA SOLITARIA Wilson

SOLITARY SANDPIPER

HABITS

This dainty “woodland tattler” is associated in my mind with some secluded, shady woodland pool in early autumn, where the summer drought has exposed broad muddy shores and where the brightly tinted leaves of the swamp maple float lightly on the still water. Here the solitary wader may be seen, gracefully poised on some fallen log, nodding serenely, or walking gracefully over the mud or in the shallow water. Seldom disturbed by man, it hardly seems to heed his presence; it may raise its wings, displaying their pretty linings, or it may flit lightly away to the other side of the pool, with a few sharp notes of protest and a flash of white in its tail. I have often seen it in other places where one would not expect to find shore birds, such as the muddy banks of a sluggish stream, somewhat polluted with sewage, which flows back of my garden in the center of the city, or some barnyard mud puddle, reeking with the filth of cattle; perhaps it is attracted to such unsavory places by the swarms of flies that it finds there.

Spring.--The solitary sandpiper arrives in the United States during the latter part of March, but it makes slow progress northward, for it does not reach New England until May. We generally see it singly, in pairs, or in small numbers, but according to William Brewster (1925) it sometimes occurs in favorable localities, near Umbagog Lake, Maine, in large numbers; he writes:

According to an entry in my journal I saw them there literally in “swarms” on May 20, 1880, when, as we advanced by way of the river in a boat, they were ceaselessly rising and flitting on ahead, uttering their peet-weet calls, and also making a faint yet noticeable rustling sound with their wings. Thus driven they sometimes alighted, one after another, on some muddy point, until as many as seven assembled within the space of a few square feet. Nevertheless, they were for the most part paired, and the mated birds almost invariably kept together, and apart from all the rest when on wing.

The migration in the interior seems to be at least two or three weeks earlier. E. W. Hadeler tells me that in Lake County, Ohio, one is almost sure to find it, on the river where the sewer empties into it, between April 22 and May 18. Many must pass through the inland States in April, for Edward S. Thomas has recorded it in Ohio as early as March 30 and calls the average date of arrival April 15. A. G. Lawrence has recorded it in southern Manitoba as early as April 29 and it reaches its northernmost breeding grounds in Mackenzie and Alaska soon after the middle of May.

Courtship.--Dr. John B. May has sent me the following notes on a courtship display of this species which he saw in New Hampshire:

Paddling down river one day, probably between the 8th and 15th of June, I saw several pairs of solitary and spotted sandpipers where the muddy banks were exposed, near a swamp where bitterns breed. Both species were apparently courting, making considerable noise and showing their white feathers in display. Every little while one of the solitary sandpipers would fly up slowly into the air, only rising a few feet, and rising slowly with rapidly beating or quivering wings, giving a twittering whistle and spreading the tail so that the outer white feathers were very conspicuous. Then it would drop back to the mud again near where it rose. The time taken in rising a few feet would have carried it some distance with its ordinary flight.

Nesting.--The nesting habits of this sandpiper long remained a mystery or were misunderstood. In looking over the literature on the subject I came across no less than seven published records of nests found on the ground and said to be positively identified as this species. These were all published prior to the discovery of the now well-known habit of nesting in the deserted nests of passerine birds. Not a single one of these records seems to be substantiated by an available specimen of the parent bird. The solitary sandpiper may occasionally nest on the ground, but it is yet to be proven.

To Evan Thomson belongs the credit for making the interesting discovery of the tree-nesting habit. This historic incident is described by J. Fletcher Street (1923) as follows:

Mr. Thomson many years ago took up a quarter section of land under the Canadian homestead act, built himself a log cabin at the edge of a muskeg, and commenced the arduous task of clearing the land. Living alone in this wilderness without neighbors and possessing a keen love for nature and a particular interest in the abundant wild life about him, he came to devote his spare moments to the study of birds, counting as his immediate associates such hermit species as the great-horned owl, long-eared owl, saw-whet owl, goshawk, and a large host of water fowl and waders. Seated one day before his cabin he noticed a bird fly to a low tamarack and enter a nest. It was ostensibly one of the waders, and great was his surprise upon examining the nest to find it the structure of a robin. It contained four beautiful eggs, greenish white in ground color and heavily spotted and blotched with reddish brown. Thus, on June 16, 1903, the first authentic eggs of the solitary sandpiper were taken but it was not until a year later that the identity of the bird was definitely established. It was indeed interesting, 20 years later, to be shown the cabin and to view the original tree from which the eggs were collected. Subsequent to the finding of this nest many others have been located, the bird evidencing no particular choice of nest in which to deposit its eggs, the list including those of the bronzed grackle, Brewer’s blackbird, cedar waxwing, kingbird, robin, and Canada jay. These have been found at an elevation as low as 4 feet and as high as 40 and in locations contiguous to water and as far away as 200 yards.

Walter Raine (1904), for whom Mr. Thomson was collecting eggs at the time, was the first to publish the important news, but he waited a year until another nest was found and the parent bird shot. The following year, 1904, Mr. Thomson found two more nests and shot the parent bird from the last one. Mr. Raine (1904) then published a full account of all three nests, each of which contained four eggs. The first nest, taken June 16, 1903, was “an old nest of the American robin, built 15 feet up in a tamarack tree, that was growing in the middle of a large muskeg, dotted with tamaracks.” The second was found on June 9, 1904, an old “nest of a bronzed grackle, built in a low tree.” The third set was taken on June 24, 1904, and the parent bird was shot, as she flew from “the nest of a cedar waxwing, which was built in a small spruce tree growing in a swamp, the nest being about 5 feet from the water.” Since then numerous other nests have been found in similar situations. A. D. Henderson (1923) reported a nest found in 1914, about a “dozen feet up in a poplar tree,” and on June 7, 1922, a set of eggs was taken for him, with the parent, by a young friend:

The nest was in a white birch tree, growing at the edge of the timber, on the shore of a small lake, and about 150 yards from his home. A brood of young robins had been raised in it last season, he told me. It was about 18 feet from the ground and a typical robin’s nest, of grass and mud. The inside lining of grass was gone and the eggs lay in the bare mud cup, no material being added by the sandpiper, which I identified as the eastern form of the bird.

Mr. Henderson and Richard C. Harlow took a set of four fresh eggs on May 30, 1923, near Belvedere, Alberta, from an old robin’s nest 10 feet up in a scrubby spruce, 30 feet high, on the muskeg border of a swampy lake. A nest found by Messrs. Street (1923) and Stuart, near Red Lodge, Alberta, on May 29, 1923, was also an old robin’s nest only 4 feet from the ground in an 8-foot spruce, in a muskeg surrounded by spruces and tamaracks.