may cc - Rees ¥ ENTS aR See - Seach Socata: yd pace : : e < Sereno Pe eating: ; ; se Se Bea : RK 2385.2 Se ton ee ee eee 179 Lanius ludovicianus anthonyi: Island shrike_____________________- 180 Habits] a2 8s =—.-2 252282 = 222 A SATE Ge yee oe oe ee oe ee 222 Distributions aa. oso = ee ee eee 226 Vireo griseus griseus: White-eyed vireo_____________________-___-- 227 Mabites = 254 Sasi ie Da eee ee aS ee eee 227 Distributions) 2522 ee ae eee ee ee 235 Vireo griseus maynardi: Key West vireo____________________------ 237 Va bites 2S 5 = Be ee ae ee ee i ee 237 Vireo griseus bermudianus: Bermuda vireo__________________--__-- 239 SRST Sh DNS Se a er ae ee 239 Vireo griseus micrus: Rio Grande vireo_______________________-__- 240 ELS DItS ane oe ee ey ae 240 Vireo huttoni huttoni: Hutton’s vireo__________________________-- 242 EA DItS eae See ee see eee 242 Distribution eee en ee 248 Vireo huttoni stephensi: Stephens’s vireo________________________-- 249 LAD ts See es a ee ee ee 249 Vireo huttoni cognatus: Frazar’s vireo__________________-_-_------- 252 Tig DiS eye oa ee ee 252 Vireo! belli: belli? Bells: vineos 2 sae se ee 253 ERS DIGS ene ee eee ee 2 253 Distributions 222s ee ee ee ee 261 Vireo belli medius: Texas vireo________________________________-- 263 ER AD it 2 ee ee ee 263 Vireo belli arizonae: Arizona vireo_______._______--_--_--__-----_-- 263 EV Sy BUGS er eae ee a ee ee tp 263 CONTENTS Family Vireonidae—Continued Marea Dellb pusinus DeasG ViTeO.2245 25.00. here 6 ce et nt Vireo Victor: Gray VilCO soc ene Soe hoes e sacs SShcc55 2 EE TOea LS eee ES he TN a ig A EE Sore oe IDIShriD Wb O We, Se ee, eae oe Aen eee ee Vireo flavifrons: Yellow-throated vireo MOBY TS GG YeL CN UG OTe st ee Vireo solitarius solitarius: Blue-headed vireo AD) Cpe fos LL Oe ee a eee ce nee a em, RE Sec ag Vireo solitarius alticola: Mountain vireo__________-_____-_-_____- - USE] ays peo ee eo ga EN a ee Vireo solitarius plumbeus: Plumbeous vireo_____-_---------------- AFSL Sa Rey Ci pees et rte ey eS se a es BOVIS YG ED UO ae ma ee ng Gee SS Vireo philadelphicus: Philadelphia vireo_-_____-_------------------ TEMPUS seeps eee EA ee, AE oe, 2 Bae sD Vireo gilvus swainsoni: Western warbling vireo_-_------------------ BUGIS en ee ers ee ere le Gee lent ae Coereba bahamensis: Bahama honeycreeper---------- ee ela ohn & TREES yp eae i ae ee ea Distribution BOCAS NU RCN UOUN a 5 Seat ira es res ah iene irene See Se ee ee sees es ITF scan ape sah ee ra eo pI ee eee ae INTRODUCTION This is the eighteenth in a series of bulletins of the United States National Museum on the life histories of North American birds. Previous numbers have been issued as follows: 107. Life Histories of North American Diving Birds, August 1, 1919. 113. Life Histories of North American Gulls and Terns, August 27, 1921. 121. Life Histories of North American Petrels and Pelicans and Their Allies, October 19, 1922. 126. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), May 25, 1923. 130. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), June 27, 1925. 185. Life Histories of North American Marsh Birds, March 11, 1927. 142. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 1), December 31, 1927. 146. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 2), March 24, 1929, 162. Life Histories of North American Gallinaceous Birds, May 25, 19382. 167. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 1), May 3, 1937. 170. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 2), August 8, 19388. 174. Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers, May 23, 1939. 176. Life Histories of North American Cuckoos, Goatsuckers, Hummingbirds, and Their Allies, July 20, 1940. 179. Life Histories of North American Flycatchers, Larks, Swallows, and Their Allies, May 8, 1942. 191. Life Histories of North American Jays, Crows, and Titmice, January 27, 1947. 195. Life Histories of North American Nuthatches, Wrens, Thrashers, and Their Allies. July 7, 1948. 196. Life Histories of North American Thrushes, Kinglets, and Their Allies, June 28, 1949. The same general plan has been followed and the same sources of information have been utilized as in previous bulletins, to which the reader is referred. As this and the previous bulletin were prepared simultaneously and were originally intended to be published as one bulletin, the list of contributors is the same for both volumes and need not be repeated here. Eighteen complete life histories were contributed especially for this volume; eight were written by Bernard W. Tucker and five by Dr. Winsor M. Tyler; Dr. Alden H. Miller, Wendell Taber, Alexander F. Skutch, Alexander Sprunt, Jr., and Robert S. Woods contributed one each. The same valued assistance was rendered by Dr. Winsor M. Tyler, in indexing, and by Wm. George F. Harris in preparing the eog data and measurements. The manuscript for this volume was completed in 1948. Contribu- tions received since then will be acknowledged later. Only informa- tion of great importance could be added. The reader is reminded again that this is a cooperative work; if he fails to find in these volumes anything that he knows about the birds, he can blame himself for not having sent the information to— Tue AUTHOR. vit 4 I als yas oo ee Oe) i io hee gr aed 0; § wal) Ae Cc! "|| Qnty we rv eet IO LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WAG- TAILS, SHRIKES, VIREOS, AND THEIR ALLIES ORDER PASSERIFORMES (FAMILIES PRUNELLIDAE, MOTACIL- LIDAE, BOMBYCILLIDAE, PTILOGONATIDAE, LANIIDAE, STURNI- DAE, AND VIREONIDAE) By Arraur CLEeveLAND Bent Taunton, Mass. Order PASSERIFORMES Family PRUNELLIDAE: Accentors PRUNELLA MONTANELLA (Pallas) MOUNTAIN ACCENTOR CONTRIBUTED BY BERNARD WILLIAM TUCKER HABITS There are two records of this Siberian bird in Alaska, the first referring to a specimen taken by C. G. Harrold on Nunivak Island on October 3, 1927, and recorded by Swarth (1928). The second is of a male taken at Camp Collier, St. Lawrence Island, on October 138, 1936, and is recorded by Olaus J. Murie (1938). It was obtained by Mrs. Murie in 1937 from an Eskimo, Jimmie Otiyohok, whose wife had learned to prepare bird skins and who had recognized this as an unusual visitor. It is only in the more southern parts of its range that this species, like a number of other Arctic forms, is confined to mountains. Far- ther north, as Seebohm (1901) has pointed out, it is essentially a bird of the Arctic willow swamps. Dybowski (in Taczanowski, 1872) states that in southeast Siberia, though it is tolerably common in spring, only a few remain to breed in the more elevated portions of the mountains. He met with old birds in company with fledged young in the forests of cedar mingled with firs at the foot of the Chamardaban Mountains at the south end of Lake Baikal. More recently Stegmann 1 2 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM (1936), writing of the Baikal Mountains, has described the species as mainly characteristic of the subalpine scrub zone and mentions meeting with it in two places in scrub of Pinus pumila. He states that the birds were shy and secretive. Nesting—Popham (1897), who found six nests in the forests of the Yenisei Valley at Yeniseisk, states that these were “sometimes placed as high as eight feet from the ground in the fork of a willow, and at others quite low down in the stump of a dead tree, and composed of small twigs and dry grass lined with moss and a few hairs.” Farther north on the Yenisei, Seebohm (1879) found the species mainly fre- quenting the willow scrub near the banks of the river and took a nest in latitude 7014°, which was built within a foot of the ground. Eggs.—The eggs are a uniform, rather deep blue and are doubtfully distinguishable from those of the European hedge-sparrow (Prunella modularis) , though they are said to tend to be rather paler and smaller. The clutch is 4-6. Jourdain (in Hartert, 1910) gives the measure- ments of 31 eggs as: average, 18.55 by 13.75; maximum, 20.6 by 14.2 and 19.1 by 14.4; minimum, 17 by 13.2 and 17.2 by 12.6 millimeters. Young.—No details are recorded. Plumages.—The plumages are described in Hartert’s great work, “Die Vogel der paliarktischen Fauna” (1910). The juvenal plumage is like the adult’s, but with colors paler and with flecks of brown on the throat and breast. Food.—The food consists of insects and other small invertebrates, together with small seeds in summer and almost exclusively in winter. Exact data seem to be almost entirely lacking, but seeds of Amaranthus are recorded. Behavior.—A quiet unobtrusive bird described as very much like its better-known relative the Kuropean hedge-sparrow in habits. Like that species it is inclined to skulk in low cover, though, at any rate in the breeding season, it will also perch in and sing from tall trees, when these are present. Seebohm seldom saw it on the wing, but in autumn Miss Haviland (1915) found that birds which were met with flitting about the bushes of the Yenisei Delta frequently took wing and flew a short distance with a jerky, pipitlike flight. Voice.—The note is a shrill triple call rendered by Seebohm (1901) as ¢éd-il-il and described by him as titlike. It has a short unpretentious but not unpleasing song, which both Seebohm and Popham (1897) describe as resembling that of the European hedge-sparrow, which is a Short, high-pitched warbling strain. It may be delivered either from low cover or, within the limits of forest growth, from well up in a tree, and is at any rate of suflicient merit for the species to be kept as a cage bird by the Chinese. Field marks.—No field characters have been recorded as such, but it is asmall bird of somewhat warblerlike, though fairly robust, build WHITE WAGTAIL 3 and proportions, with black-streaked brown back, conspicuous black crown and sides of head, separated by a broad pale yellow superciliary stripe, and pale yellow underparts. The striking head pattern and yellow underparts should make it easy to be recognized. Length about 6 inches. Fall and winter—David and Oustalet (1877) state that in China at the beginning of the winter cold it settles in gardens and brushwood- covered places, and La Touche (1925), quoting the experience of the Bailey Willis Expedition in 1903-4, states that in the Chili-Shansi Mountains in winter “singly or in pairs they are met in almost every gulch, flitting in and out among the boulders and rugged ledges along the brooks.” DISTRIBUTION Summer range.—Siberia from the Urals to Bering Sea, north to about 70° in the Yenisei Valley, south to the Altai, Sayansk, Baikal, and Stanovoi Mountains. Winter range——North China and Korea. Occasional in the Ural Mountains and stated to occur on passage in the Crimea. Casual records.—Italy, Austria. Family MOTACILLIDAE: Wagtails and Pipits MOTACILLA ALBA ALBA Linnaeus WHITE WAGTAIL CONTRIBUTED BY BERNARD WILLIAM TUCKER HABITS The white wagtail is an irregular, but apparently not really very rare, visitor to east Greenland, where it has even bred occasionally, and it has been recorded once on the west coast. Winge in his “Gr¢n- lands Fugle” (1898) was able to quote three records, which include the still unique one for the west coast just mentioned. This refers to a female from Godthaab sent by Holbgll to the Copenhagen Museum in 1849. The other two refer to Angmagsalik, and it is from this locality, the site of the only considerable settlement on the east coast, that in- formation as to the status of the white wagtail in Greenland is chiefly derived. This is due in the main to the careful records of Johan Peter- sen, the colony superintendent from 1894 to 1915, which are dealt with by Helms in his account of “The Birds of Angmagsalik” (1926). Petersen first observed a white wagtail at Angmagsalik in the spring of 1895, and this constitutes one of the records quoted by Winge. “In 1899 it was seen every day during nesting time in July-August, and on August 21st Petersen saw a young bird. It appeared for the last 4 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM time on August 31st.” He observed another on June 12, 1900, and one was shot on June 10, 1915. On May 15, 1900, he was also informed by a Greenlander from Sermilik, in the same district, that three had been seen there about two days previously. It may be added that Alvin Pedersen (1930) was informed by Greenlanders that the white wagtail was often met with at Angmagsalik. F. S. Chapman (19382), orni- thologist on the British Arctic Air Route Expedition, records a nest with six eggs at Angmagsalik on June 16, 1931. He also records one identified near the expedition’s base, west of Sermilik Fjord in the Angmagsalk district, on May 10 of the same year and two on May 16, but none were seen there after May 17. Chapman remarks that the white wagtail and several other species which breed in Iceland, only a few hundred miles distant, “all appeared for a few days and then vanished, as if they had overshot their destination.” Alvin Pedersen (1926 and 1930) records white wagtails from the Scoresby Sound district, considerably farther north. One was shot at Cape Stewart on August 24, 1924, and on June 3, 1925, he saw one at Cape Hope and a little later three at a puddle of thaw water. Men working at Cape Hope knew the birds well; they had been seen daily for some days and there were thought to be two pairs. They were not seen, however, after June 9. Another was believed to have been seen and heard at Elvdal on August 15. In his 1930 paper Pedersen records that in 1923 in the second half of March young wagtails were seen in two places. “One can therefore conclude with certainty that the species has bred at Scoresby Sound.” Unfortunately, Pedersen’s statement is rather ambiguous. It seems obvious that young birds could not have been hatched in Arctic Greenland in March, which seems extraordi- narily early for any small birds except snow buntings to be present at all. If birds young in the sense of being in their first spring are meant, then it may be observed in the first place that it seems unlikely that they could have been recognized as such without shooting and secondly that they would only afford evidence of breeding if they were known to have wintered in the country. Of this there is, of course, no evidence whatever and in such a latitude it appears almost, if not quite, impos- sible. The import of Pedersen’s statement is thus obscure, and it is a pity he was not more explicit. It seems logical to suppose that his birds were early migrants. The above is, to the best of the writer’s knowledge, the sum total of published information with regard to the white wagtail in Green- land, and it has seemed desirable to deal with it fairly fully, as the status of this bird in Greenland seems never to have been adequately dealt with in American literature. The A. O. U. Check-list quotes only Godhavn (on the west coast) on the authority of a second-hand statement by Prof. Alfred Newton in the “Arctic Manual” (1875) and ignores the much more numerous records for the east coast, except WHITE WAGTAIL 5 for the rather vague statement in a footnote “said to breed on east coast (Schigler).” The Godhavn record is based on the inclusion of Motacilla alba in a list of birds obtained at that place in August 1857 by Dr. David Walker in the Ibis, 1860, p. 166, but this was an error, as Professor Newton himself subsequently showed (Yarrell’s “British Birds,” ed. 4, vol. 1, 1874, p. 549), so that the record should be deleted. Apart from its visits to Greenland the white wagtail is entitled to a place on the American list on the ground of an occurrence near Fort Chimo, northern Ungava, in August 1883. With regard to this Lucien M. Turner (1885) wrote that four individuals were seen by Alex. Brown and James Lyall, of the Hudson’s Bay Co., on August 29, 1883, at Hunting Bay, 4 miles south of Fort Chimo. He added that they described the birds accurately, stating that they were the two parents and two young of the year and that he placed the fullest reliance on their assertion. The white wagtail, or its British representative, the pied wagtail (M. alba yarrellit) , is one of the birds which an American ornithologist visiting Europe is almost sure to see, even if he has little leisure for bird observation, for it is much associated with buildings and inhab- ited places, though in no way confined to such. About farms and villages its liking for nesting in sheds and outbuildings or in crannies in walls attracts it into association with man, and it may be met with even in towns, in the more residential districts where some gardens and open ground are available. Among European small birds it is one of the species for which it is most difficult to define any clear-cut habitat or “biotope,” and so far as one can be defined at all it must be partly in negative terms. It is found in a variety of more or less open country, especially, as already noted, about farms, buildings, and cultivation, and preferably, though by no means necessarily, near ponds, streams, or other water. Large closely built-up areas, large uninhabited tracts of moor or marshland and the like, and high ele- vations in mountains are generally avoided. The same is true of closely wooded country, but here comparatively limited clearings or open ground along the banks of rivers and streams will suffice to attract it. In the high north of Europe it is found mainly near the coast, while in Iceland, according to Hantzsch (1905), it prefers the lower-lying regions especially near standing or running waters and the vicinity of the sea, and displays the same attachment to farm- steads, villages, and inhabited places that it does on the mainland of Europe. It is probable that the relatively frequent records of its occurrence at Angmagsalik are not solely due to the much more regular observation there as compared with other parts of the east coast of Greenland, but again to this liking for the haunts of man— a liking, it should be added, which, at any rate in the breeding season, 6 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM is sufficiently accounted for by the variety of suitable breeding sites they afford. The name white wagtail is too firmly established to be altered, but it is a rather absurd misnomer, for the bird has a pied pattern of gray, white, and black. The name is presumably a translation of Linnaeus’s “Alba” and has probably been the more readily accepted by English ornithologists because it does serve to express, though - in an exaggerated form, the main difference between the black-backed British race or pied wagtail and the paler, gray-backed continental bird. In fact, in this case, as in that of the white rhinoceros, it seems that it must be understood as meaning “not so black”! Courtship.—The courtship display of Motacilla alba seems more elaborate than in most small European passerines. It has been more fully described in the British form or pied wagtail than in the white wagtail proper, but there is no reason to suppose that the races differ in their behavior. The most complete account of the pied wagtail’s display is that of Boase (1926). In the early stages the female is often pursued hither and thither in a graceful, erratic, dancing flight by one, two, or more males which endeavor to induce her to pause long enough for them to posture before her with the head held high and the bill pointing upward at a sharp angle so as to display the glossy black gorget. It is somewhat curious that according to Boase’s observations this display of the throat patch appears not to occur in the display of paired birds, but only in the early stages, of courtship in the narrower sense, when males are endeavoring to attract a mate. Further observation on this point is perhaps desirable. In later stages the male frequently approaches the female in a zigzag course, posturing at the same time. Boase describes two variations of this performance. In one the head was moved with a jerky bowing action, a quick flutter of the wings accompanying each return to the normal position. In the other the bird had the head depressed and carried the wing nearest the female expanded, at the same time expanding and depressing the tail and twisting it over to the same side so as to display as much as possible of its upper surface. Displays of this general type, with variations, are not uncommon. Again, as described by Boase, the male may approach the female with wings drooping and tail spread and depressed, head held low, and the feathers of the rump raised, in a manner recalling a display posture of the European blackbird. Boase does not mention coition as following such displays, but the one just described, at any rate, is a typical preliminary to the sexual act. He does, however, describe in this connection another more striking form of posturing in which the male spreads and erects the tail vertically, with bill inclined upward WHITE WAGTAIL ZL and wings drooping or slightly spread or sometimes fluttered. The female may or may not respond but, according to Boase, is “generally inattentive, finding interest in a passing fly or in preening, and the whole business may end in a wild pursuit.” He records one case, however, where a female joined in a display. He states that he “gives the particulars as they were noted at the time, in spite of the appear- ance of an error in judging the sexes.” ‘The bird taken to be the male was facing the other when first seen and was bowing rapidly. In the raised position the neck was extended to its limit and the bill was held normally; in the lower position, the neck was retracted, the head being level with the back and the bill slightly uptilted. The other bird, judged to be the female, so far as the plumage gave indica- tion, crept or shuffled with wings and tail moderately expanded and head depressed around the male, which turned so as to face her.” In connection with coition the female is usually passive, merely quivering the wings and raising the tail if responsive or, if not, some- times actually dashing at and pecking the male. The above are some of the main types of behavior, but there is a good deal of variation, the displays of wagtails, like those of a good many other small passerines, being by no means stereotyped. ‘The Rev. E. Peake (1926) describes a case, observed on April 29, thus: “The cock approached from ten feet or so away, bobbing his head straight up and down with body flattened out. Then, when he got near, he danced round with wings curved and expanded, and his tail also expanded and drooping, and singing all the time. The hen with tail raised and head lowered stood snapping her bill.” Other minor variations could be added, but the foregoing will suffice. The reader may perhaps be reminded that these observations refer entirely to the British race, since detailed observations on the white wagtail proper of continental Europe are almost entirely lacking. It so happens that the only two brief observations available differ slightly from any recorded for the pied wagtail, but the not incon- siderable variation in the latter race has already been mentioned, and it is most unlikely that there is any real or constant difference in the display behavior of the two forms. One of the two observations referred to was, it must be noted, made on captive birds. W. E. Teschemaker (1913) in an account of white wagtails which nested in an aviary writes: “The display is very characteristic and interesting. The female crouches on the ground with quivering wings and tail, and beak raised. The male standing sideways to her grovels on the ground, trailing his drooping wings; he then throws himself on that side which is farthest from the hen, the wing on this (the farthest) side drooped and quiv- ering, the other wing raised perpendicularly and also quivering.” In the “Handbook of British Birds” the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain 8 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM (1988, vol. 1) has a note on a pair of white wagtails he saw in Rumania facing one another with the tails of both birds almost perpendicularly erected and appearing quite rigid, but unfortunately this somewhat fragmentary observation was all that he could make, as he was passing by in a boat. Nesting —Where the white wagtail is a summer migrant the males usually arrive in advance of the females. In Helgoland males have. been passing for about three weeks before females begin to appear. The nest is generally built in a recess or cavity of some sort or at least in amore or less concealed position. It may be found in holes in walls and other masonry or in rocks or cliffs, in steep banks, inside sheds or outbuildings, under bridges, in hollow trees or among the roots of trees, in wood stacks, among ivy, and so forth. Commonly it is well above ground level, from a couple of feet or so to perhaps 9 or 10 feet, but it may be merely under a clod in a plowed field or among marram grass on sand dunes. Occasionally it is built in the nest of some other bird, such as a song thrush, blackbird, or fieldfare. The bulk varies a good deal according to the situation. It is made of dry grass, straws, roots, fine twigs, dead leaves, and moss with cup lined with hair, feathers, or bits of wool. It is built by the female only, with the cock accompanying her. It is evident that the female is also mainly concerned in the actual selection of the site, but C. and D. Nethersole- Thompson (1948) state that the male of the pied wagtail also examines possible sites and may “suggest” sites to the female, which she thor- oughly tests. Eqgs.—The ground color of the eggs is a slightly grayish or biuish white, closely freckled with gray or brownish, with underlying pale- gray markings often more or less distinct and sometimes with a few hairlike dark-brown streaks. White eggs occur and an erythristic variety has been recorded once. Jourdain (1988, vol. 1) gives the num- ber as four or five to seven as a rule, rarely eight, and he gives the following measurement of 100 eggs: Average, 20.4 by 15.1; maximum, 21.5 by 15 and 20 by 16.2; minimum 18 by 15 millimeters. The breed- ing season is given by the same authority as from the end of April to early in July, exceptionally later in central Europe, but in Iceland and north Europe often not before June. Eggs may sometimes be found in Iceland by the end of May. It may be recalled that the nest in Greenland recorded by Chapman and already mentioned contained eggs on June 16, but is not known when they were laid. Young.—Incubation is performed chiefly by the female, though ac- cording to Jourdain the male may take some share. The incubation period is 12-14 days. Teschemaker (1913) observed that eggshells were carried away from the nest by birds in captivity. Both parents feed the young. In the case of the pied wagtail the feces of the nestlings are carried away by the parents, at least in the WHITE WAGTAIL 9 later stages (Blair and Tucker, 1941), and it is safe to assume that this is true also of the present race. The fledging period is 14-15 days. Plumages.—The plumages are fully described by H. F. Witherby in the “Handbook of British Birds” (1988, vol. 1). The nestling (de- scribed under the pied wagtail, M. a. yarrellii, and doubtless not differ- ing in the present race) has smoke-gray down distributed on the inner and outer supraorbital, occipital, humeral, ulnar, spinal, femoral, crural, and ventral tracts, but very scanty on the last two. The mouth is orange-yellow inside, with no spots, and externally the flanges are very pale yellow. In the juvenal plumage the upperparts are brownish gray, lores and ear coverts dingy, buffish white, breast band dark, smoky brown, rest of breast and flanks buffish gray, throat and belly dull white with a yellowish tinge, wings and tail much as in adult. In the first winter the male is like the adult female, except for having usually rather more black on crown, and the female is also like the adult of that sex but does not show any white on forehead or black on crown as the adult may do. The gray crown has also usually an olivaceous tinge. Food.—The food consists mainly of insects, principally Diptera, but Jourdain (1988, vol. 1) mentions also Neuroptera, Trichoptera, Ephemeroptera, etc., as well as small snails. Behavior.—Several of the chief features of behavior are mentioned later under “Field marks.” The incessant up-and-down tail motion is one of the bird’s most noticeable characteristics. Though largely terrestrial, wagtails perch readily on buildings, fences, and so forth, and somewhat less freely on trees. The mainly insect food is secured chiefly on the ground or in shallow water or in little aerial excursions after flies or gnats. The birds are much attached to the neighborhood of water and may often be seen wading in the shallows of pond, lake, or stream. This association is, however, by no means obligatory, and they may be regularly met with far from water. Farmyards are a popular resort, and the birds will follow the plow in the fields, search- ing for small worms and burrowing larvae. In the high north they have naturally less opportunity of benefiting by agriculture and cul- tivation as an extra source of food supply. In Arctic Norway they are mainly coastal birds and may often be seen, as indeed they may be in the other parts of their range, foraging for flies and other arthropods among the debris about high-water mark on the seashore. Voice.—The principal note, used both in flight and when settled, but especially in flight, is a rather shrill tschizeik. There is also a rather more musical tz/-wirrp (the irr to be pronounced as in chirrup) with variants, and the alarm note of breeding birds is an incisive chick. The song is a simple, but lively, warbling twitter, consisting largely of slurred repetitions of call notes with variants and modulations. It is delivered on the wing or from a perch or while the bird is running 843290502 10 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM about on the ground and is quite often heard from birds on passage- Indeed, it has very little if any sexual or territorial significance, and ene of the major functions served by the song of most birds, that of advertisement to possible mates in spring, seems here to be discharged by the tschizzik note, which is uttered persistently from such points ot vantage as roofs, walls, or rocks. Field marks.—The white wagtail and the other races of Motacilla . alba are very easily recognized, though the separation of the races may be difficult or in some plumages impossible in the field. They are small, slim, long-tailed birds (total length about 7 inches), with a pied pattern of gray, white, and black, spending much of their time on the ground, where they walk and run actively, constantly moving the tail up and down in a very characteristic manner, and the head back- ward and forward. The flight is equally characteristic, strongly un- dulating, in a succession of long curves with the wings closed at brief intervals for perceptibly longer than in the case of most small passer- ines of similar size. The note ¢schizzik, which is freely used in flight, is also distinctive. In the white wagtail the mantle and rump are clear pale gray, nape and hind part of crown black, forehead, front of crown, sides of face, and belly white. In summer the whole throat and breast are black, but in winter plumage the throat is white bounded by a horse- shoe-shaped black bib. The wings and tail are blackish, with double white wing bar and white outer tail feathers. In the female the gray is rather duller than in the male, and young birds in the juvenal plumage are altogether duller and more uniformly grayish without the strong blacks and whites, as described under “Plumages.” Differences from W/. a. ocularis and M. a. lugens, the other two races on the American list, are mentioned in the accounts of those forms. Enemies.—The white wagtail falls a victim at times to various hawks, and in the northern regions the merlin (pigeon hawk) is evidently its chief avian enemy. Greaves (1941) mentions (European) sparrow hawks and peregrine falcons attacking birds at roosts in Egypt. Four- footed marauders, such as rats and weasels, sometimes take toll of the nestlings, and owing to the association with human habitations which has already been stressed the domestic cat must be accounted an im- portant enemy. Hantzsch (1905) particularly mentions prowling cats as special enemies about the farms and settlements of Iceland. In continental Europe the cuckoo frequently lays its eggs in nests of the white wagtail, and as this means that the wagtails can rear no brood of their own, since the rightful young ones are ejected from the nest by the young cuckoo, the cuckoo must be included in the list of enemies. A list of invertebrate parasites is given by Niethammer (1937), and the same author states that not a few nestlings appear to succumb to the attacks of the larvae of the fly Protocalliphora caerulea. WHITE WAGTAIL 11 Fall and winter.—The white wagtail is a migrant in the northern parts of its range, and in fall there is a southward movement to the Mediterranean region and Africa. In the British Isles there is a reg- ular passage down the west coast of Great Britain and both east and west coasts of Ireland, consisting, no doubt, mainly of birds from Ice- land. It hasbeen shown in Germany (e. g.,in Helgoland) that the first arrivals are young birds. Later old and young pass together (Weigold, 1926). In winter quarters, according to most observers, it seems generally to frequent the vicinity of water and may be found either singly or insmall parties or in flocks, which may reach very large dimensions. It may, however, also be found well away from water. It is at roosting time that gregarious tendencies are most pronounced, for in regions where many winter, as in Egypt, hundreds and sometimes even thousands will assemble to roost together, and similar gregarious roosting takes place during migration. Reed beds and areas of tangled swamp vegetation are the sites most favored, but buildings and trees (sometimes even in towns), bushes, ivy on walls, and other sites are also made use of. Greaves (1941) has given an interesting account of roosting habits in Egypt, where enormous numbers roost in sugarcane by the Nile. He says: “The birds circle round and up and down, con- stantly changing directions and calling. It was not clear whether those already down called, but it seemed obvious that the leaders of the flocks were trying to find out the places where others were already roosting, and when the leaders went down the majority followed at once or after making another short flight. Generally, they dropped like stones, with closed wings, until just above the cane, sometimes from a height of forty feet or more. It was exceedingly difficult to assess numbers, but there was no doubt that on favourable occasions a single observer might see as many as 2000. Once down they rarely took to wing again unless disturbed.” This wasin January. The same kind of thing can be observed on a much smaller scale in Europe. Greaves further states that white wagtails wintering in Egypt “exercised a territorial habit in feeding, and regularly frequented the same garden. A male would dispute his right with another male but generally tolerate a female on his territory, sometimes two, but as observations continued it seemed clear that the association was a loose one. The female for most of the season was in close attendance on the male, and often fol- lowed him, but at other times fed alone.” DISTRIBUTION Breeding range.—Iceland, Faeroes, and practically all Europe from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean and from Portugal to the Urals, but excluding the British Isles, where the form is replaced by the pied wagtail (MV. a. yarrellii). Also Kolguev, Corsica, Asia Mi- nor, and Syria. FZ BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Winter range.—Southern Europe and Africa south to Kenya and Uganda, Belgian Congo (Uele River), Ubangi Shari, Sierra Leone, and Liberia; also Madeira, Palestine, southern Arabia, and Iraq. Spring migration.—Leaves Equatorial Africa in March. Present in Egypt until early April (late date, May 2). Passage through Brit- ish Isles mid-March to early in June. Passage of males begins March in Helgoland, that of females from April 9. Reaches breeding grounds in Germany and Holland in March-April, southern Finland begin- ning of April, and far north of Europe early in May (first arrivals recorded at Vadsé, northern Norway, May 4, and at Ust Zylma, north- ern Russia, May 12). Arrives southern coastal districts of Iceland at the end of April and beginning of May (early date, April 15). Fall migration—Leaves Iceland in August and September (re- corded Westmann Islands until October 10). Passage in British Isles mid-August to early in October, in north and central Europe August to October. Even as far north as south Finland some are still passing even in November. Arrives Egypt early October (earliest date, October 7). Reaches Equatorial Africa October. Casual records.—Jan Mayen, Azores. MOTACILLA ALBA OCULARIS Swinhoe SWINHOE’S WAGTAIL HABITS This is a northern Siberian race of the common white wagtail of Europe, from which it differs in having a black or dusty streak through the eye and having much more white on the wing coverts. Its known breeding range in northern Siberia seems to extend from the Yenisei and Lena Rivers eastward to Plover Bay on the Chukotski Peninsula, the nearest point to Alaska, and southward in the interior to Lake Baikal. It is an extremely rare bird in Alaska, and some of the published sight records are open to doubt. Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) writes: “Although this bird has been taken repeatedly at Plover Bay, Siberia, and thence throughout a large portion of Northeastern Asia, including China and Formosa, to the Lake Baikal region, it appears to be almost unknown in Alaska. In fact its claim as a bird of the Terri- tory rests upon the capture of a single specimen, a young bird in sum- mer plumage, by Captain Kellett and Lieutenant Wood in ‘Northwest America’, as recorded in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Birds, X, 473.” The 1931 Check-list gives two Alaska records, Attu Island and mouth of the Yukon, both sight records. The former is based on the following statement by Lucien M. Turner (1886) : I was looking out of my window on the morning of May 14, 1881, watching the vessel, which was to take me to Unalashka Island, enter the harbor. I saw a bird SWINHOE’S WAGTAIL ites just beneath the window and on the ground, not more than seven feet from my eyes. At the first glance I supposed the bird to be Plectrophanagz nivalis. A mo- ment sufficed to convince me that it was not. I ran to get my gun; and, as I opened the door, of the entry-way, to get out, the door opened directly on the bird, which, with a chirp precisely like that of Budytes flavus leucostriaius, flew off to a distance of 75 yards and alighted. I approached as nearly as I dared and fired at it, but failed to obtain it, as the gun was loaded with No. 3 shot. It flew off beyond the hills and was not seen again. This may, of course, have been ocularis, but it seems much more likely that it was dwgens, which is common on the nearby Commander Islands. The record for the mouth of the Yukon is based on the following statement by Dr. Louis B. Bishop (1900) : “On the morning of August 28 the Robert Kerr, on which I was a passenger, was hindered from proceeding by a gale and low water on the bar, and was made fast to the bank at the Aphoon mouth of the Yukon. As I came on deck I saw half a dozen white wagtails fly about the vessel and settle in the grass close by. While I returned for my gun they left, but a thorough ac- quaintance with Motacilla alba in Kgypt, where it is abundant during the winter, leaves me no doubt that these birds were wagtails.” These probably were Swinhoe’s wagtails, but no specimens were taken. The most remarkable American record, which is supported by a specimen and so not open to question, is Lyman Belding’s (1883) Lower California record ; he reports “a single specimen shot January 9, 1882, during a cold gale from the north. It was found on a drift of sea-weed on the beach.” His specimen was an adult in winter plumage and was taken at La Paz, near the southern extremity of the peninsula. It seems hardly likely that this wandering waif could have crossed the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean, unless it had been transported on some ship from southern Asia. It may, of course, have wandered across Bering Strait and then followed the Pacific coastline southward, but it is strange that no other specimen has ever been taken or seen anywhere along this coast south of Alaska. I’. Seymour Hersey (1916), who made two trips to northern Alaska to gather material for this work, published the following report on his experience with Swinhoe’s wagtail: “Although this bird has been considered merely a straggler to Alaska, there are reasons for believing that the species is slowly extending its range and becoming established on our coast. During the northern cruise a number of individuals were seen between Kotzebue Sound and Cape Lisburne. “At Chamisso Island, on August 1, a pair of birds were carrying food into a crevice in the rocks at an inaccessible point on the cliff. One or two were also seen at other points, and at Cape Lisburne I succeeded in shooting a bird which, unfortunately, fell on the farther side of a creek where it could not be found.” Alfred M. Bailey (1926), who spent parts of two seasons in northern 14 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Alaska, says of this wagtail: “Only one specimen was seen on the Alaska side and that at Wales on June 23. While travelling down the coast by dog sled I found a mud nest in an abandoned igloo. The native with me told me it was the nest of a little bird ‘all same snow- bird, little longer’. It was similar to the nest which I found in the cliff along Providence Bay, but I was unable to carry it with me for possible identification.” N. G. Buxton (J. A. Allen, 1905) found Swinhoe’s wagtail abundant around Gichiga and Marcova, in northeastern Siberia, where 17 speci- mens were collected; he says in his notes: “The first birds arrive the middle of May, but they do not become common before June1. Before and after the nesting time they are seen in twos and threes about the houses and along the river banks and seacoast, but they never collect in flocks like the Yellow Wagtails, and are seldom seen far back on the tundra. They nest in the crevices in the banks of the streams and along the seacoast and on the ground in the grassy places along the streams. They are good songsters, singing especially while on the wing. They begin to depart the latter part of August and are seldom seen after the middle of September.” Migration.—Swinhoe’s wagtail is evidently a common migrant through China. Tsen-Hwang Shaw (1936) records it as passing through Hopei Province in April and again in September and the first part of October. “A few of these birds winter in some warm places within the territory of Hopei province.” Vaughan and Jones (1913) write: The Streak-eyed Wagtail is an exceedingly common bird of passage at Hong Kong, Macao, and on the Kwang Tung coast generally. Although appearing as early as August 9 on migration, the latter part of September or early October is the more usual time for their advent, when immense numbers may be seen on the cricket-ground and in the Naval dockyard and elsewhere on the island of Hong Kong. The birds on their passage usually roost in the trees, and as many as fifty were observed to crowd themselves, with much bickering, into a small tree in the Naval dockyard. They leave again on the spring migration in April, and probably only breed in the far north of Asia; they do not occur inland, so that their migration is along the coast-line. Johan Koren, collecting for Thayer and Bangs (1914), reported that “Swinhoe’s wagtail arrived at Nijni Kolymsk, on May 15, 1912, and in the autumn of 1911 was observed as late as Sept. 21.” Nesting.—Aside from the probable nests mentioned by Messrs. Hersey and Bailey, no nest seems to have been found in Alaska, but several have been found in Siberia. Thayer and Bangs (1914) say that “a nest with a set of six eggs was taken at Nijni Kolymsk, June 11,1912. It was built under the roof of a log cabin in the village.” Mr. Bailey (1926) writes: “A nest was found July 5 with five badly incubated eggs, in a little crevice in a crumbling rock cliff SWINHOE’S WAGTAIL 15 facing Providence Bay, about twenty feet from the ground. The nest was of grasses, plastered together with mud and lined with a few feathers, as in a robin’s nest. It was fastened rather firmly into the nesting cranny. Unfortunately, I fell with the nest, breaking the eggs. The parent birds hovered overhead all the time I was attempt- ing to climb the rotten walls, one of them having flushed from the nest when I first discovered it.” Theodore Pleske (1928) mentions a nest and six eggs of Swinhoe’s wagtail, taken on June 19, 1902, at the mouth of the Elijdep River, of which he says: “The nest is large, solidly built and thick-walled; it is made of dry grass blades of the preceding year interwoven with twigs, sometimes fairly thick, of a small shrub, probably Betula mana, and tufts of moss or lichen. The inner layer of the nest, is formed of finer grass so arranged that the material becomes finer and finer toward the lining. The cavity itself is abundantly furnished with hair of the wild reindeer very skilfully selected from the finest tufts and in addition a feather of the Snowy Owl (Vyctea nyctea).” A set of five eggs in the Wilson C. Hanna collection was taken near Lake Baikal on May 30, 1898, from a nest situated on the ground, composed of roots and moss and lined with fur. Eqgs.—Five or six eggs generally constitute the full set for the Swinhoe’s wagtail. Mr. Pleske (1928) describes the eggs referred to above as follows: “The eggs have a white ground color covered with small spots of a drab brown (Ridgway, Pl. 46, drab) uniformly disposed over the surface and forming a wreath at the large end and a small number of black lines on the large ends of some of the eggs.” Mr. Hanna describes his eggs as ovate in shape, slightly glossy white, and thickly marked, more heavily on the large ends, with fine markings of “buffy brown,” “buffy olive,” and “light brownish olive.” The measurements of 26 eggs average 20.1 by 15.0 millimeters; the eggs showing the 4 extremes measure 22.0 by 15.8, 17.3 by 14.5, and 19.9 by 14.1 millimeters. Plumages.—As Swinhoe’s wagtail is considered to be only a sub- species of the common white wagtail, its molts and plumages probably follow the same sequence, as fully described in Witherby’s Hand- book (1919). In Nelson’s “The Birds of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean” (1883), facing page 63, there is a fine colored plate of an adult male in full spring plumage, which shows the characters of the subspecies very clearly. And in Turner’s “Contributions to the Natural History of Alaska” (1886), facing page 178, there is a good colored plate of the adult and young in winter. La Touche (1930) says of the immature plumages: “Young birds are entirely dull grey on the upper parts, the forehead grey of a 16 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM lighter tint, a white eyebrow and a blackish trans-ocular stripe; the- sides of the head are mottled with grey, the throat feathers are edged with black and the breast has a blackish crescent-shaped patch. The face and throat are generally suffused with yellow. After the autumn moult the young bird has the forehead and the forecrown white, but the hind crown is grey like the rest of the upper parts. The black begins to appear on the head during the first winter.” Food.—Mr. Shaw (1936) says: “This bird, like several other wag- tails, is insectivorous. Its food consists of spiders, beetles, and some other insects and their larvae.” Behavior.—Mr. Hersey writes (1916) : “My failure to secure speci- mens was due to the excessively restless habits of the birds. When on the ground they were largely concealed by intervening clumps of moss and the general character of the tundra, while they were liable to take wing at a moment’s notice and usually flew long distances. Their flight was so erratic that it was exceedingly difficult to shoot them on the wing.” DISTRIBUTION CONTRIBUTED BY BrerNaRD WILLIAM TUCKER Data on winter and summer ranges and migrations are summarized by Paludan (1932), whose paper should be consulted for fuller particulars. Breeding range.—Northeast Siberia from the Tchuktchi Peninsula west to the Yenisei (Turukhansk) and south to the Stanovoi Mountains. Winter range——South China, Formosa, Hainan, Indochina, Tenas- serim, Burma, Assam, West Bengal, Philippines. Spring migration—Leaves winter quarters in April; last recorded north Kansu May 8, North Chihli May 10, Amurland May 10; arrival at Nijni Kolymsk, northeast Siberia, May 15. Recorded Bering Island from May 9. Fall migration—Recorded Nijni Kolymsk as late at September 21; Chihli, September 15 to October 10; Szechwan, September—November ; Kwangtung, September. MOTACILLA ALBA LUGENS Kittlitz BLACK-BACKED WAGTAIL CONTRIBUTED BY WINSOR MARRETT TYLER HABITS A black-backed wagtail was taken on Attic, now called Attu, Island on May 4, 1913, apparently the first and so far the only record of the BLACK-BACKED WAGTAIL 17 occurrence of the species in North America. John E. Thayer and Outram Bangs (1921) published the record of its capture: During the course of the expedition to the Arctic coasts of Hast Siberia and Northern Alaska in 1913 and 1914, upon which Messrs. Joseph Dixon and W. Sprague Brooks went as zoological collectors, their power schooner, the ‘Polar Bear,” put into the harbor at Attic Island, the outermost of the Aleutian chain, in early May, 1913. From the deck of the vessel here several black and white Wagtails, recognized as Motacilla lugens Kittlitz, were seen flitting about the beaches, and on May 4, one adult male was secured. This specimen, now No. 21590 collection of John BH. Thayer, is the first, we believe to be recorded from North America. J. D. D. La Touche (1930) in his handbook of the birds of eastern China gives the range of the black-backed wagtail thus: This fine Wagtail summers in “Kamtschatka, Commander Is., Kurile Is., Askold Is., Hokkaido and N. Hondo (Awomori), and on the Aleutian Is. [7], and its extra-Chinese winter range includes South Japan, the Riu Kiu Is., and Formosa.” * * * The Kamtschatkan Wagtail is quite common at Swatow during the winter, but it does not appear to have been noticed by Mell in the interior of Kwangtung or by Vaughan and Jones on the West River. At Foochow it is common enough on passage and a fair number may be seen there in winter as well. * * * At Chinkiang I saw a good many, but chiefly in spring. At Shaweishan it was observed from the 8th March to the 8th May, and in October. This Wagtalil is found on wet fields, marshy ground, and mud-fiats. I never saw it in the valley of the Min above Foochow, nor in the mountains. Sten Bergman (1935) gives the following account (freely trans- lated from the German) of the black-backed wagtail in Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands: The form of white wagtail that breeds in Kamchatka is Motacilla alba lugens. It is very common inland as well as on the seacoast, but commoner on the latter. I met it in all parts of the peninsula that I visited during the summer. The first acquaintance that I made with it was on Cape Lopatka, where our ship had a mishap. Here it was everywhere on the seashore, especially on the eastern side, on the rocky shores, where the white wings of the birds contrasted with the dark stones. On the coast of the Pacific Ocean I found it breeding in all the creeks near my camp between Cape Lopatka and Petropawlowsk. Farther north on the same coast Malaise found the black-backed wagtail breeding at Cape Olga, and I found it myself at Ust Kamchatsk. On the Okhotsk Sea I found it in family parties from Cape Lopatka to Bolsheretsk between August 20 and September 2. Malaise found it in the fall of 1921 on Kronoki Lake. In the dry woods the black-backed wagtail is naturally absent. It needs water in order to prosper, and I have never seen one on Kamchatka far from a stream or lake. Its call seems to me identical to that of the white wagtail. Next to the iark, it is the earliest of the small migrants to arrive in Kamchatka. In 1921 I saw the first example in Petropawlowsk on April 22, but sometimes they come even earlier. They generally leave the country at the end of Sep- tember, but some remain even longer, and I saw a wagtail in Petropawlowsk on October 22. Motacilla alba lugens builds its nest in many different kinds of places. The normal one is on the shore of the sea or a river, on the ground, not far from water, but the wagtail is also fond of human society and sometimes builds its 18 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM nest about houses. Building begins in the first half of May. I found a pair on May 14th that were already busy with their nest under the projection of the roof of a house in Petropawlowsk. In Klutschi I found a nest on the roof of a native hut, another on a balagan (a drying rack for salmon), and a third on a boat drawn up on the shore of a river. The nests are large and firm, and are similar to those of the white wagtail. I collected three nests which are now in the Swedish National Museum. The three are almost entirely lined with animal hair, generally from reindeer. Scarcely a feather occurs in any of the nests. The eggs are laid at the end of May. I found two nests with freshly laid eggs ~ on the 30th and 31st of May near Klutschi. The first pair, whose nest was col- lected on the 30th of May, immediately began to build a new one about 20 meters from the site of the earlier one in a drawn-up skiff, and had on June 12th a complete nest with five eggs. The building consumed 9 days. The eggs agree in color and size with those of the white wagtail. The wagtail, except Hirundo rustica tytleri, is the only small bird in Kam- chatka that seeks human companionship, and nests in houses. This form breeds commonly on all the Kurile Islands, according to Yama- shina. The wagtail is the first of all the birds to arrive in the Kuriles in the spring. After the young have flown, the wagtails are found in family groups along the seashore. Field marks.—According to Bernard W. Tucker the male in breed- ing plumage differs from Jf. a. alba and ocularis in having a black back. He says that it is much like the pied wagtail (J. a. yarrellii) of the British Isles but differs in having the secondaries wholly or largely white and a black streak through the eye as in ocularis and that the female and the male in winter have gray backs, or largely gray, and could not be distinguished from ocularis in the field; indeed many specimens in the hand appear to him to be separable only with difficulty. Winter.—The habits are similar to those of other races of Jf. alba. La Touche (1980) states that in China it is found on wet fields, marshy ground, and mud flats. DISTRIBUTION Breeding range-——Kamchatka, Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, Yezzo, and north Hondo. Westerly limits somewhat uncertain; recorded from Askold Island and the Amur; but “apparently not on the Amur,” according to Hartert and Steinbacher (1938). Winter range.—Southeast China (Lower Yangtse, Fokhien, and Kwangtung), south Japan, Riu-Kiu Islands, and Formosa. Spring migration.—Data on migration are summarized by Paludan (1932). Noted passing at Shaweishan, off the mouth of the Yangtse, from March 8 to May 8; arrives Kuriles from early March, but said not to do so in Kamchatka until April-May. Fall migration.—Gone from Kuriles by end October; recorded at Ussuria and Shaweishan in October and Lower Yangtse in November. ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAIL 19 MOTACILLA FLAVA ALASCENSIS (Ridgway) ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAIL HABITS This pretty little bird is our American representative of a wide- ranging species of northern Europe and Asia, from Norway and Sweden to northeastern Siberia. It is one of the few Asiatic species that have wandered across Bering Strait and become more or less firmly established in Alaska, but the yellow wagtail has become more firmly established than the others and is now really abundant in its limited range on this continent, from Point Barrow and Kotzebue Sound to the mouth of the Nushagak River, on the Bering Sea coast of Alaska. It probably breeds also on St. Matthew Island and per- haps on other islands in Bering Sea. On the tundra back of Nome, in July 1911, we were surprised to find the yellow wagtail to be one of the most characteristic and most conspicuous of the small land birds of the region. The young were on the wing then and were much in evidence everywhere, especially in the willow patches and around the small ponds on the tundra, but also on the outskirts of the town. Except near the town they were quite shy, especially when on the ground, but they were constantly flitting about over us, with their peculiar, buoyant, billowy flight and continuous twittering notes. Dr. Nelson (1887) says that “in the vicinity of Saint Michaels it is one of the most familiar and common land birds, and as one walks over the open tundra its familiar clinking, metallic note strikes pleas- antly on the ear. It usually has a preference for the boggy, moss- grown portions of the country.” Dr. Grinnell (1900) found it to be “an abundant summer bird of the coast region of Kotzebue Sound.” The first specimen he secured “was flushed from the weedy border of a dwarf alder thicket near a pond.” Our Alaska race of this species was once supposed to be identical with the form found in eastern Siberia, M. f. leucostriatus, which is decidedly duller in coloration than the brightly colored, olive-and- yellow type form that is found in northern Europe. Our bird is now regarded as distinct from the Siberian race, and is even duller in coloration; Mr. Ridgway (1904) describes alascens?s as similar to M. f. leucostriatus, “but slightly smaller, especially the bill; colora- tion duller, the yellow of the under parts paler and less pure, the chest more distinctly clouded or blotched with grayish, the olive- green of rump, etc., less pronounced.” Spring.—By just what route the Alaska yellow wagtail reaches its summer home on the Bering Sea coast of Alaska does not seem to be definitely known; and it never will be known until enough specimens 20 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM have been collected on migration in eastern Asia to separate our bird~ from the form breeding in northeastern Siberia. It probably fol- lows the same route by which the species originally invaded this continent. Dr. Nelson (1888) says that it “makes its appearance the last of May or the first of June, according to the season.” And Lucien M. Turner (1886) says: “This bird arrives about the 12th of June; a few days earlier or later, depending on the opening of the spring.” Herbert Brandt (1948) writes: “We did not observe this Palaearctic species as a transient about Hooper Bay during the migration, and it does not seem likely that such a conspicuous bird could escape us had it passed through our region in anything like the numbers that congregated in the mountains a little farther north. It seems prob- able that this wagtail arrives either from the north or directly across Bering Sea from its Asiatic winter haunts.” Courtship.—Dr. Nelson (1887) writes: When the male pays his addresses to the female in spring a peculiar perform- ance takes place, somewhat like that of the Yellow Chat. The male starts up from a bank or clump of bushes, and, rising for 20 or 30 yards at a sharp angle, suddenly stiffens and decurves his wings, at the same time slowly spreading and elevating his tail nearly perpendicularly to his body, and in this curious position he floats slowly down until within a foot or two of the ground, uttering a low, clear, and rapid medley of jingling notes which can only be compared to the sound made by lightly rattling together the links of a small steel chain. This performance is very commonly executed over a large snow-bank, as if the bird appreciated the contrast afforded by such a background. As he approaches the ground in his descent he suddenly glides away to a neighboring bush or knoll, whence he repeats the maneuver. Nesting.—Dr. Nelson (1887) says: Their nests are usually placed under the edge of a tussock or slightly over- hanging bank, bunch of grass, or in fact of any similar shelter, under which they can partially or wholly conceal the nest. Their preference, however, is for grassy borders of a rather steeply sloping bank, along the brow of which they place their nests. AS one walks over the grass-covered places frequented by these birds, during the breeding season, he is likely to see a female flutter off her eggs at his feet, and, flying away a few yards, alight and glide away, mouse-like, among the grass with such rapidity that, unless closely watched, she quickly disappears. In some cases she will lie thus concealed for some time, and other times she joins the male at once and circles about overhead. He says that no two of his seven nests are exactly alike: The outer portion is usually composed of bits of grass and moss, pretty com- pactly arranged, with the central cavity well lined with some warm material, such as the hair of dogs and man, or Ptarmigan feathers, or a combination of the three. One nest is built mainly of fine grass lined with a closely felted layer of dogs’ hair. The second nest has a thin layer of moss and grass followed by one of feathers, and the six eggs it contains rest upon a layer of silky-brown club-mosses. The third is composed of a felted layer of dogs’ hair at the bottom, followed by a thin layer of feathers; this is succeeded by a still thinner layer of club-moss, and the eggs rest upon a felted layer of dogs’ hair. The fourth nest is composed of a uniform loosely joined structure of feathers and pieces of grass all mingled into a heterogeneous mass. ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAIL 21 Wilson C. Hanna has sent me the data for six sets of eggs of the Alaska yellow wagtail that came to him with the parent birds, five from the Meade River, 100 miles southeast of Barrow, and one from Wales, Alaska. Three nests were in the roots of small willows on the bank of the river, one was in long grass on the river bank, one was on a grassy knoll near some willow roots, and the nest at Wales was “sit- uated at mound at old dwelling place.” The nests were made mainly of grasses and fine plant stems, with sometimes a few dead leaves, root- lets, mosses, or feathers. The three nests that he has in his collection are of “rather compact construction”; one has only the finer material for a lining, and another has a good lining of reindeer hair, mouse hair, moss, and a few feathers. The measurements of these nests vary in outside diameter from 4 to 4.5 inches, in inside diameter from 2 to 2.3, in outside depth from 2.5 to 3, and in inside depth from 1.7 to 1.8 inches. Dr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw (1948) gives a somewhat simi- lar account of the nesting of this species near Bethel, Alaska. #'9ggs.—The Alaska yellow wagtail lays four to seven eggs to a set, five and six being the commonest. Mr. Hanna gives me the follow- ing description of the 17 eggs in his collection: “The eggs are ovate to short-ovate and are without gloss. At first glance they look like some egos of the horned lark, but smaller in size. The ground color is ‘deep olive-buff’ to ‘dark olive-buff.’. The markings are fine and rather uni- form over the entire surface of the eggs, but in at least a few cases heavier on the larger end. The markings are ‘light brownish olive’ to ‘buffy olive’.” Dr. Nelson’s description (1887) is somewhat different; of a series of 37 eggs, he says: “The ground color of the eggs varies from a pale- greenish clay to a clayey white, over which extends a profuse confluent mottling, varying from slaty to reddish brown, which, in some cases, almost hides the ground color; in others the spots are large and less numerous, and do not cover the shells so completely. The eggs of the same set usually are of a similar shade and markings, and in but one set can the slightest traces of zigzag markings be found about the larger ends.” The measurements of 50 eggs average 19.1 by 14.4 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 20.9 by 15.3, 19.5 by 15.6, 18.0 by 14.4, and 18.5 by 13.2 millimeters. Young—Mr. Turner (1886) says that “incubation lasts ten to thir- teen days. The young birds are fed exclusively on insect food. They are able to fly in fifteen to eighteen days after hatching. The earliest birds sometimes hatch two broods of young in a season, as young just able to fly have been observed as late as August 18th.” When we were at Nome, around the middle of July, the young were fully fledged and on the wing; small parties were often seen about the houses on the out- 22 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM skirts of the town and on the beaches, where they evidently found an abundance of food. Plumages.—Ridgway (1904) notes no sexual difference in the juvenal plumage, which he describes as “above olive-brown, the wings and tail as in the autumnal plumage; superciliary stripe, malar stripe, and under parts pale yellowish buff, relieved by a conspicuous crescentic patch on chest of sooty black, connected laterally with a submalar stripe . of the same color along each side of the throat; bill, legs, and feet brownish.” The postjuvenal molt takes place between July and September. This involves some wing coverts and all the contour plumage, but not the rest of the wings or the tail. It produces a first-winter plumage, which is practically like that of the adult. Ridgway (1904) describes the young male in this plumage as “above plain olive, more grayish on head and rump; wings and tail as in adults; superciliary stripe, chin, and throat pale straw yellow, the first two paler, nearly white; rest of under parts pale buffy yellow or yellowish buff, paler (nearly white) on un- der tail-coverts; chest tinged with brown, and with a distinct crescentic patch of darker brown; sides and flanks light grayish brown or olive.” He describes the young female as similar, but “chest less strongly tinged with brown and with only a few spots of darker brown.” As with some of the Eurasian races, there is probably quite an extensive prenuptial molt in birds of all ages, which involves all the contour plumage, most of the wing coverts and the central tail feathers, though we have not the material to show it in our subspecies. Adults have a complete postnuptial molt, beginning late in July and sometimes lasting through September. There seem to be no winter specimens available that are definitely known to belong to this subspecies, but the winter plumages are probably similar to those of closely allied races, which are fully described in Witherby’s Handbook (1919). Food.—Not much is known about the food of the Alaska yellow wagtail, which probably does not differ materially from that of the species elsewhere. Witherby’s Handbook (1919) says that the food of the European race consists “almost entirely of insects (coleoptera and larvae, diptera, orthoptera, larvae of lepidoptera, rhynchota, etc.). Saxby records small worms, larvae, aquatic insects, and small univalves, but these are probably exceptional and diptera constitute bulk of food.” Dr. Grinnell (1900) saw some of these wagtails feeding on salmon- berries, which grew plentifully near the alder thickets. He says also: “Several came around our tents at Mission Inlet daily for crumbs, and if I kept quiet they would come quite close. A wagtail would approach from the nearest grass-patch, sidling along, hopping daintily with ever- changing attitude and canting its head from one side to the other. At every step or two the bird would hesitate a moment before again ad- vancing, its tail nervously twitching up and down. If it spied a crumb, ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAIL 23 a quick dart and away the bird would fly to a safer rendezvous. The wagtails would also snap up lots of flies.” Behavior.—On July 13, 1911, I was exploring the tundra back of Nome, Alaska. From the top of a low hill I could see a small pond about a mile away and walked over to it, where I found three or four small ponds with wet meadows and marshy ground about them. On the way down over the tundra, as I approached a patch of low willows, I noticed a small bird, which at first I thought was a pipit, flying back and forth in front of me, going over the same space again and again until I became tired watching it and waiting for it to alight. It had a peculiar, billowy, fluttering flight, was twittering constantly, and seemed to be tied to one spot just in front of me, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. I soon saw that it was not a pipit, for I could recognize the bright yellow breast and the conspicuous white tail feathers of the Alaska yellow wagtail. It was my first experience with this lovely little bird, which was really abundant about the willow patches and around edges of the swampy ponds. The peculiar be- havior of this individual was probably due to the presence of young in that particular spot. There were plenty of fully fledged young on the wing, but there were probably others in the nests, for we saw adults with food in their bills. At low tide these birds, especially the young, resorted to the beaches to pick up bits of food left by the receding waves; here they flitted gracefully among the rocks or walked daintily over the wet ground, nodding their heads and flirting their tails after the manner of pipits or the other wagtails. They were always shy on the ground but, if flushed, would come back and circle overhead, where their restless and erratic flight made them difficult to shoot. Dr. Nelson (1887) writes: “Even during the breeding season they are ever on the alert, and the approach of a stranger to their haunts is sure to bring several of them from bush or flat to protest against the right-of-way. They may be distinguished, while yet far away, by their long, easy, swinging flight, undulating in their course like Spinus tristis, or a Woodpecker; drawing near, they circle slowly overhead, constantly uttering the sharp plé-plé-plé, or alighting for a moment upon a small bush or hummock, flirting their tails and moving rest- lessly about, apparently consumed with nervous impatience, and scarcely have they touched the ground ere they are again on the wing.” Votce.—The courtship flight song is referred to under that heading, and the call note is described above by Dr. Nelson. Dr. Grinnell (1900) referred to the latter note as a faint pe-weet, uttered at fre- quent intervals. These are the notes that I recorded as twittering notes; I never heard any very musical notes, nor anything that could be called a song. 24 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Dr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw (1948) observed that the “song was usually a high tzee-zee-zee, or a ter-ewee—ter-zwee—ewee-2wee. The regular rate of singing was about seven times per minute on warmer days during the morning. The birds sang periodically throughout the day, but not continuously.” Field marks.—The yellow wagtails can be recognized by their yellow or yellowish breasts, white throats, and dark cheek patches. Other- wise they closely resemble pipits in appearance and behavior. Fall.—Dr. Nelson (1887) says that “early in August the old birds commence to disappear, and by the middle of the month are seen only occasionally, although on the 18th of August they have been noted on Saint Lawrence Island. The young remain longer and are found in scattered parties all about the settlements and native houses in the same localities favored by the common Water Wagtail, which occurs sparingly along the coast at this season. The Yellow Wagtail trips daintly along the grassy margins of the muddy spots, its vibrating tail and slender form distinguishing it among the motley crowd of Savanna Sparrows, Lapland Longspurs, and common Wagtails which keep it company.” Mr. Turner (1886), probably referring to the young birds, says: By the 1st of September the birds of this species collect into small flocks, of eight to twenty in number, and remain as late as September 21st, at which date they have about all disappeared. They generally signalize their readiness to depart by assembling on the low banks, bordering the beach, and dart high into the air to return to the same, or similar, place after a few minutes time. At this particular season of the year they are extremely wary and difficult of approach. * * * JI once observed the bird on Attu Island (the westernmost of the Aleutian Chain) on Sunday, October 8, 1880. I chased the bird up and down for two hours, but was not able to get near enough for a shot, as it was very wild. It was evidently on the fall migration, and none were seen after that day. It does not remain on the Aleutian Islands during the breeding season. Like some other representatives of Asiatic species that breed in Alaska, this wagtail does not migrate down the Pacific coast of North America but prefers to retrace its steps over the ancestral route and migrate down the eastern coast of Asia to its winter haunts in south- eastern Asia and the islands beyond, perhaps across Bering Strait or through the western Aleutians. DISTRIBUTION Range.—According to the A. O. U. Check-list (1931) the Alaska yellow wagtail: “Breeds in the Arctic Zone in extreme northeastern Siberia and western Alaska from Point Barrow and Kotzebue Sound to Nushagak River; migrates through the western Aleutian Islands to eastern Asia.” AMERICAN PIPIT 25 ANTHUS SPINOLETTA RUBESCENS (Tunstall) AMERICAN PIPIT HABITS The pipit, apparently a frail but really a hardy bird, seeks its sum- mer home in regions that would seem to us most unattractive and forbidding, among the moss-covered, rocky hills on the bleak coast of Labrador, along the Arctic tundra to northern Alaska, up to 70° on the west coast of Greenland, and then far southward in the Rocky Mountains to Colorado and New Mexico, where it breeds only above tree limits on the wind-swept mountaintops. In the far north and in Labrador it breeds on low hills not far above sea level, but in the mountains its summer haunts become gradually higher as the tree limit rises; on Mount McKinley, Alaska, it breeds from 4,000 to 5,000 feet altitude, in Oregon it is recorded as breeding above 8,500 feet, in Wyoming above 11,000, in Colorado above 12,000, and in New Mexico, at the southern limit of its breeding range, we may find it above 13,000 feet. On the Labrador coast we found pipits very common all along the coastal strip from Battle Harbor to Cape Mugford, on most of the rocky islands and on the inland hilltops above tree growth. In that region the only tree growth is found in the sheltered hollows back from the coast and in the inland valleys. Elsewhere the coastal strip is mostly bare rock, with a luxuriant growth of reindeer moss, other mosses and lichens clothing the hollows; in the more sheltered places a few small shrubs and dwarfed deciduous trees struggle for exist- ence. Insect life is abundant here during the long days of the short summer, so that the pipits have an ample food supply; they seem to thrive in even the most exposed places. Spring—The pipit, although abundant in fall, seems to avoid New England to a large extent on the spring migration, for it is compara- tively rare and quite irregular here at that season. Its northward migration seems to be mainly west of the Alleghenies. This point is well illustrated in Milton B. Trautman’s (1940) account of the migration at Buckeye Lake, Ohio. “The first migrating American Pipits,” he says, “arrived between March 1 and 25. Flocks of mod- erate or large size, 15 to 500 birds, appeared to be dominant in spring, and only during the very last part of migration were groups of less than 10 birds often observed. The peak of migration occurred from the last of March until mid-April. Then it was possible to record as many as 800 individuals ina day. * * * Throughout spring the species was found principally in recently plowed fields, in wheat fields where the plants averaged less than 5 inches in height, in short-grass pastures, and on the larger mud flats about ‘sky ponds’ or overflow puddles.” 843290—50-——3 26 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Courtship—The song flight of the pipit is the most conspicuous part of the courtship performance. This is very well described by Joseph Dixon (1938), who observed it on Mount McKinley, as follows: “On May 20, 1926, high up among the vanishing snowfields on a rocky barren ridge at 4,000 feet, we watched a male pipit in full nuptial flight. It perched on a rock, then flew almost vertically into the sky for a distance of from 50 to 150 feet, singing a single note which was repeated constantly. Then with legs extended, feet spread out, and tail sticking upwards at a sharp angle, this male bird sang steadily as he fluttered his wings and floated down like a falling leaf, usually landing near the place from whence he began his flight.” Dr. Charles W. Townsend (Townsend and Allen, 1907) observed a similar flight-song in Labrador and gives the following information about it: As he went up he sang repeatedly a simple refrain, che-whée, che-whée with a vibratory resonance on the whée. Attaining an eminence of * * * _ per- haps 200 feet from the ground, he checked himself and at once began the descent. He went down faster and faster, repeating his song at the same time faster and faster. Long before he reached the ground he set his wings and tipped from side to side to break his descent. After remaining quiet on the ground for a few moments he repeated the performance and we watched him go up four or five times. On one occasion he was twenty seconds going up, emitting his refrain forty-eight times. In the descent he was quicker, accom- plishing it in ten seconds and singing thirty-two bars of his song. Gayle Pickwell (1947) noticed, on Mount Rainier, Wash., that two males in the vicinity of a female “were battling violently. One of the males was on the near-by snow. The other male plunged down from above with a determination rarely to be observed in avian bat- tles. * * * These pipits fought on the ground as well as in the air. One stayed largely on the snow while the other dashed upon him from above and there was no denying the seriousness of their struggles.” Nesting—The two nests of the American pipit that I saw on the coast of Labrador in 1912 were probably typical of the species, in that locality at least. The first nest was shown to me on July 6, in the bare, rocky hills of Battle Island, by two of Dr. Grenfell’s nurses, Miss Coates and Miss Thompkins, whom I had met in Newfoundland. The nest was very prettily located on the side of a little moss-covered ridge or hummock, in a little valley near the top of the moss- and lichen- covered island; it was sunk deeply into the soft mosses that overhung the entrance on the side of the little cavity ; the nest seemed to be made entirely of fine, dry grasses. It contained five eggs, which I did not disturb. The incubating bird was quite tame and, if quietly ap- proached, could almost be touched on the nest. The other nest (pl. 2) was shown me by an Eskimo, on July 21, near Hopedale. It was similarly located, near the top of a bare, rocky hill, AMERICAN PIPIT 27 under the overhanging edge of a moss-covered hummock; it was a larger nest than the other and was made of fine twigs and coarse grasses and lined with finer grass; the four eggs that it contained were nearly ready to hatch. There is little to be said about the nests in other localities, except that they are always placed on the ground in decidedly open situations, but they are almost always more or less sheltered under some outcrop- ping rock or projecting stones, or under the overhang of some eminence. Some dried moss may be placed in the hollow to protect the eggs against the moisture from the ground, but the nests seem to be made almost entirely of dried grasses and to have no other warm lining. A nest mentioned in some notes sent to me by O. J. Murie was “placed in the moss at the edge of a rock, back under a willow root.” Of two nests observed by Gayle Pickwell (1947), “one was in a clump of yellow heather and another beneath the leaves of a purple aster.” EHggs.—The American pipit lays four to seven eggs; four and five seem to be the commonest numbers. They are ovate and have very little gloss. The ground color is grayish white or dull white, some- times buffy white, but it is often so thickly covered with the markings that it is hardly visible and the egg appears to be of a dark chocolate color, indistinctly marked with small black lines. In the less heavily marked eggs the spots are more distinct and are in various shades of bright or dull browns, from chocolate to hair brown, or in some shades of drab or gray. Sometimes these markings are concentrated into solid color at the larger end. The measurements of 50 eggs in the United States National Museum average 19.9 by 14.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 21.8 by 15.5, 17.8 by 14.2, and 19.8 by 13.7 millimeters. Young.—The period of incubation does not seem to have been defi- nitely determined, but it probably does not differ materially from that of closely related European species, 13 or 14 days. According to the observations of Hazel S. Johnson (1933), at Wolf Bay, Labrador, the young leave the nest about 13 days after hatching. The brooding is done entirely by the female, but both sexes assist in feeding the young. “While in the nest the young were fed at quite regular intervals throughout the long July days. My notes show that they were fed as early as 4:30 a. um. (I believe that feeding started even earlier) and continued as late as 8:55 p.m. Rain and fog did not seem to retard feeding activities of the parent birds.” Her table indicates that the interval between feedings varied from 5 to 19 minutes; the number of feedings for a 2-hour period varied from 5 to 19; both of these periods were late in the day. She continues: As the female spent the greater part of her time on the nest, the male brought most of the food during the first six days. Flies and small larvae were the main 28 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM diet. One large larva or from two to four smaller ones were brought at one time so that each trip represented a fairly constant quantity of food. * * * Sometimes one parent did all the feeding but more often the food was divided and both fed, placing all of it in the mouth of one young bird then removing bits which they gave to others. Very rarely did the female eat any of the food brought by her mate. After feeding both birds would look expectantly at the nest. When a mass of excreta appeared it was promptly seized and consumed or carried away. In most eases the female secured it but evidently there was some competition between the parents for this privilege. During the last few days of the nesting period excreta were carried off and the nature of its disposal is unknown. The six young hatched on July 2; the growth of the young was uni- form; on July 6 pinfeathers were through the skin, and on the 11th the feathers were out of the sheaths. They were last seen in the nest in the late afternoon of the 15th. That evening they were out of the nest but nearby. Next morning a hawk was shot near the nest site and was reported to have been attacking young birds. ‘This may account for the fact that but three of the brood were seen on the 17th, with the two parent birds. Between July 16 and August 3 the family of three young with one or both parents was often seen about the woodpile and house of a local family about 300 yards from the nest site. * * * During the first two weeks out of the nest the young birds seemed to make little effort to find food for themselves but waited until the parent birds brought food and placed it in their mouths. Sometimes the old birds would utter a twittering chirp when food was found, whereupon one or more young would go to the parent to receive it. Plumages.—Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the juvenal plumage main- ly as follows: “Above, hair-brown streaked with black, the edgings of the back pale grayish wood-brown. * * * Below, creamy buff, palest anteriorly, streaked on the throat and breast rather broadly and on the sides faintly with clovebrown. Indistinct superciliary line and orbital ring buffy white; auriculars wood-brown.” An incomplete postjuvenal molt, which involves the contour plum- age but not the wings or the tail, occurs mainly in August. This pro- duces a first-winter plumage, which is practically indistinguishable from that of the adult. Dr. Dwight describes this as similar to the juvenal plumage, but “darker above with less obvious streaking and deeper pinkish buff below, the streaking heavier, forming a pectoral band and extending to the flanks; an immaculate pale buff chin. The superciliary line extends behind the eye as a whitish band.” Ridgway (1904) says that the young in the first autumn and winter are “similar to winter adults, but upper parts decidedly brown and superciliary stripe and under parts rather deeper brownish buff, with streaks on chest, etc., less sharply defined.” Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the first nuptial plumage is “acquired by a partial prenuptial moult, in April, involving most of the body plumage which has suffered much from wear and become darker above AMERICAN PIPIT 29 with the buff tints nearly lost below. The extent of the fading is sur- prising. The new plumage is buff tinged, but wear during the breeding season produces a black and white streaked bird, the buffs being wholly lost through fading.” Ridgway (1904) says of this first nuptial plum- age: “The species breeds in this plumage, which is very different from the fully adult summer dress, * * * upper parts grayish, as in summer adults, but superciliary stripe and under parts paler (dull pale buffy or dull buffy white) than in winter adults, the chest, sides, and flanks conspicuously streaked with dusky.” Adults have a complete postnuptial molt late in summer, mainly in August, and a partial prenuptial molt, mainly in April, involving most of the contour plumage. Fall birds in fresh plumage are browner above and more buffy below, and spring birds are grayer above and paler below, the spring female being less grayish above, more brownish, and more heavily spotted below than the male; but the two sexes are very much alike in all plumages. Food.—Forbush’s (1929) account of the food seems to cover the subject quite satisfactorily, as follows: The food of the Pipit consists largely of insects, small molluscs and crustaceans, small seeds and wild berries. More than 77 percent of its food has been found to consist of insects, of which over 64 percent are injurious. The seeds are chiefly weed seeds and waste grain. Professor Aughey found an average of 47 locusts and 4 other insects in the stomachs of some Nebraska specimens. The Pipit takes weevils, bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, plant-lice and spiders. It renders valuable service to the cotton growers of the South by destroying boll weevils. Exami- nation of the stomachs of 68 birds taken in cotton fields showed that half of them had eaten 120 boll weevils. Mr. A. H. Howell says that Pipits pick up weevils throughout the winter, and in the spring they follow the plowman and capture both weevils and grubs. During an outbreak of grain aphids, these destructive insects constituted more than 70 per cent of the food of a Pipit. Mr. McAtee estimated that a flock of these birds then present must have destroyed at least a million of these pests daily. According to Preble and McAtee (1923), “this species is reported by Hanna to feed during its stay on the [Pribilof] islands in fall migra- tion almost exclusively on maggots on the killing fields. However, the contents of two stomachs, collected August 31, 1914, and September 20, 1916, contained no trace of such maggots. The food in these gizzards consisted of 10 per cent vegetable matter (seeds of a violet, Viola langs- dorfiz) and 90 percent animal matter. The components of the animal food were beetles (ground beetles, Péerostichus sp.; and weevils, Lophalophus inquinatus) , 87 per cent ; caterpillars, 33.5 per cent; plant bugs (/rbisia sericans), 8 per cent; spiders, 7.5 per cent; flies, 2.5 per cent; and Hymenoptera, 1.5 per cent.” Dr. George F. Knowlton writes to me: “On October 5, 1942, W. E. Peay and I encountered a large flock of the American pipit, extending from the Petersboro foothills in Cache Valley to Collinston, Utah. 30 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM The birds were very abundant along the road, feeding among Russian thistle. Hundreds also were feeding in alfalfa and in the wheat stubble, many alighting in plowed fields. Eighteen were collected and an examination of their stomachs revealed: 1 thysanuran; 19 collem- bolans; 102 Homoptera, 76 being aphids (of which 14 were pea aphids) and 13 leafhoppers. Hemiptera constituted the largest group with 1,527 recognizable specimens, of which 986 were adult and 291 nymphal false chinch bugs and 39 mirids. The 183 beetles included 46 weevils of which 8 were alfalfa weevils, 1 a clover leaf weevil and 19 adult clover root curculios. Ten of the 29 Hymenoptera were ants; most of the 14 Diptera were adults. In addition to the insects there were 8 spiders and mites, 92 seeds and a number of stomachs contained vary- ing amounts of plant fragments.” Practically all the pipit’s food is obtained on the ground, in short grass or low-growing herbage, on bare ground or open mud flats, on drifted sea wrack along the coast, and on the salt or brackish marshes along tidal streams. On its alpine breeding ground it has been seen picking up insects on the snowbanks, where they had been blown by the wind. In all such places it walks along daintily on its long legs, pick- ing up seeds or insects from the ground or herbage, sometimes running rapidly in pursuit of an escaping insect. Mr. Cogswell writes to me: “On January 11, 1942, at Dominguez Lagoon, south of Los Angeles, I observed pipits varying their usual ground foraging procedure by perching on the branches of tall weeds growing in the shallow water and reaching for insects (?) among heads of the plants.” Mr. Trautman (1940) reports an interesting feeding reaction: “I saw some 20 individuals of this species on a peat island near the east end of Cranberry marsh. They faced a moderate breeze, and indi- viduals from the group were flying into the air 3 or 4 feet, capturing moderate-sized flying beetles, and then dropping upon the island again. Usually 4 or 5 birds were in the air at once. The continual bobbing up and down was a strange sight, and somewhat resembled that of trout in a pool rising after insects.” Lucien M. Turner says in his unpublished notes that about the whal- ing stations in northern Ungava, where the carcasses of the white whales are left to rot, incredible numbers of flies are attracted and their maggots “fairly make the earth creep.” Great numbers of pipits resort to these places to feast on these larvae. He also saw these birds wading in the shallow pools on the tidal flats, searching for aquatic worms and larvae. Behavior.—Pipits are essentially terrestrial birds and spend most of their time on the ground, in the fields, meadows, marshes, mud flats, beaches, or on the bare rocks of their summer haunts. Some writers have stated that they never alight anywhere else, but such is certainly not so. In Labrador we frequently saw them walking on AMERICAN PIPIT on the roofs of tilts, where codfish was drying, or alighting on the roofs of the fish houses and even on the roofs of the dwelling houses and on the rocks around them. On migrations, we often see them perched in trees, on wire fences or fence posts, on the ridge poles of houses, and on telephone or telegraph wires. Dr. Knowlton writes to me that, in the locality where he collected the birds referred to above, “thou- sands of pipits were present over an area 6 to 15 miles wide. The birds would fly ahead of the car, alighting on fence posts and fence wires near the approaching vehicle. However, when disturbed by a man walking along the road, large numbers would sometimes fly away and alight in the field at some distance from the collector. They seldom were much disturbed by the firing of a .22 rifle or a small 44x1 bird gun.” When on the ground the pipit walks gracefully and prettily, with a nodding motion of the head, like a dove, and with the body swaying slightly from side to side as he moves quietly along; sometimes he runs more rapidly. His colors, soft grays and browns, match his sur- roundings so well, and he moves so quietly with an easy gliding mo- tion, that before we realize that he is there he rises with a large flock of his fellows, as if exploding from nowhere, and they go flying off to some safer spot, twittering as they fly. Francis H. Allen contributes the following note: “At one time I found the grass fairly ‘swarming’ with them at a fence corner, and one might have gone within two or three rods without seeing them, so closely did they creep along the ground. Here one of them stood on a large stone, spread his tail prettily, and scratched his right ear deftly with his right foot. The books seem to say that when on the ground they wag their tails constantly, but this is not literally true, for the tail is sometimes quiet as the bird walks, and extended straight behind, the whole slender bird presenting a peculiarly flat appear- ance as he steps daintily along. I thought that the tail was more constantly wagged when the bird was standing than when he walked.” Observers differ as to the amount of tail wagging and when it oc- curs, but the pipit belongs to the wagtail family and must indulge in a certain amount of it. Audubon (1841) stated that the pipit wags its tail when it stops walking; Forbush (1929) says “almost con- stantly moving the tail”; and others have referred to it as a constant habit. Probably there is some individual variation in the habit between different birds, or at different times in the same individual. Milton P. Skinner (1928) watched particularly for this habit in North Carolina and found that it was not a constant one. He noted that “their bodies and tails swung from side to side in time with each step,” and says: In every case this sidewise movement of the tail was an accompaniment of the body movement, and I did not see a single Pipit move its tail sidewise inde- 32 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM pendently of the body. But I found there was another movement of the tail, up and down, that was sometimes made. Of one hundred and forty birds watched on January 28, 1927, some tipped their tails up and down rapidly while walking and while resting on the ground but many of them did not. Ten days later, I noted that only a few of these pipits moved their tails up and down, and that even these movements were noticeable only when the birds alighted after flight, and then there were only two to five movements. On March 1, 1927, I observed that when these birds stopped walking they moved their tails more or less regularly, but the motion was not noticeable while they walked, and: disappeared altogether when they ran. The pipit’s flight is buoyant and undulating, powerful and swift, but rather erratic, as if the bird were undecided where to go or to stop. A large flock of pipits in flight is an interesting sight; they rise sud- denly and unexpectedly from almost underfoot, those nearest first and then rank after rank progressively, as if bursting out of the earth; all join into one big flock before our astonished eyes and go sweeping off in a loose, undulating bunch, some rising and some falling in a confusing mass, like so many swirling snowflakes. They swing in a wide circle over the field and back again, swoop downward as if about to alight, then off again as if undecided, and finally drop out of sight on the brown earth in the distance, or perhaps return again and settle near the spot from which they started. Dr. Witmer Stone (1937) thus describes the actions of a large flock of pipits on a burnt-over area: After circling in a large arc they came drifting back and settled down near where they were before. Several times later they flushed but always returned to the burnt area. By watching exactly where they alighted I was able to detect them scattered all over the ground, about one bird to each square foot, where thickest. Their backs had a distinct olive cast in the strong light but the streaks on the under parts were only seen clearly when the birds were breast on. They all walked deliberately or sometimes took half a dozen steps in rapid succession, almost a run, though less regular. They all moved in the same general direction and as I moved parallel with them I could see them pressing straight ahead through the grassy spots and between the grass tufts and the stems of the bushes that had escaped the fire. They kept their heads pretty well down on the shoul- ders and leaned forward, dabbing at the ground with the bill, to one side or the other, apparently picking up scattered seeds of grasses and sedges. The tail was carried parallel with the ground or tilted up a trifle while the tips of the wings hung just below its base. The tail moved a little as the bird advanced but there was no distinct tilting as in the Palm Warbler or the Water-Thrush. Voice—The American pipit is not a gifted songster, but the full song as heard on the breeding grounds is rather pleasing. It sometimes sings a weaker suggestion of this song during its spring migration in April and May. Dr. Harrison F. Lewis has sent me the following note on this song: “Pipits sing a good deal when passing Quebec, P. Q.., in the spring migration. Here the song is commonly uttered while the birds are on the ground, but I have heard them sing from a tree, in which they perched freely. I do not appear to have any record of AMERICAN PIPIT 33 this species singing while in flight. The song is simple, but pleasant and attractive. It sounds like ke-tsée, ke-tsée, ke-tsée, ke-tsée, ke-tsée, tr-r-r-r-7-7-1, ke-tsée, ke-tsée, he-tsée, tr-r-r-r-r-r-r, ke-tsée, etc., and is apparently of indefinite duration. Sometimes the little trills are introduced into it frequently, at other times sparingly. The song is not thin, like that of the black and white warbler, but pretty and tinkling, though rather weak.” The song-jlight has been described under courtship, and the flight- song, as heard on the breeding grounds, is described in the following notes from O. J. Murie: “The pipits were generally shy. When I ap- proached one he would fly off with a sharp ¢see-seep, tsee-seep, tsee-see- seep, then the impulse to sing would come over him and he would flutter his wings and go through his performance. The song was usually a repetition of syllables, see-see-sce-see-see — —, a peculiar resonant kr accompanying and barely preceding each see, a quality impossible to describe adequately. This appeared to be the commonest form of the song. Sometimes it was varied, the notes being almost 2- syllabled, as ¢s7-ee, tsr-ee, tsr-ee, tsr-ee — —, and again sounding like ter-ee-a, ter-ee-a, ter-ee-a — —. Often it was a quite different form, 2 clear gliding sw7t-swit-swit-swit — —, or a little more prolonged swee-swee-swee-swee — — — —. Frequently a bird would break off on one form of the song and finish on another. The song was usually given on the wing, soaring upward to a height of about a hundred feet, then fluttering downward, finally sailing down to a rock with wings set and raised, and tail elevated. All this time the bird would sing his repetition of the same note, sometimes keeping it up after alighting.” The note that we hear on the fall migration, or in winter, is very short and simple, suggesting the name pipit. F. H. Allen (MS.) says of the flock he was watching: “The birds got up a few at a time generally, uttering as they arose a musical wét-wit, or wit-wit-wit-wit, with the accent, I should say, on the last syllable. When they were well a-wing, their note was a single, short prodt, very pleasing to the ear.” Mr. Cogswell contributes the following comparison of the notes of two species that are found along our shores and are likely to be confused: “The usual flight call note of the pipit is distinctive of this species, and helpful in separating a distant flying flock from horned larks inhabiting similar areas and with somewhat similar calls. The pipit’s note is a sharp tsip tsip, tspt-it, or Just tstp— tsip-it; the lark’s is lower in pitch and much more rolling, not given so sharply—thus, sleek, slik-seeezik, or slik-sleestk, or just a sleek, sslik, slik.” Field marks.—The American pipit is a plainly colored, gray and brownish bird with no conspicuous markings, except the white outer tail feathers; and even these are not distinctive, for several other 34 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM birds have them, notably the juncos, the vesper sparrow, and, to-a Jess extent, the longspurs. The juncos are not often seen in the haunts of the pipit, and if they were, the color patterns of the different juncos are quite distinctive. The sparrow and longspurs are not so slender as the pipit; they have short, conical bills, and they hop rather than run. The white tail feathers of the pipit show only in flight, but its slender form and sharp bill, together with its habit of walking or running, the nodding of its head, and the frequent up-and-down mo- tion of its comparatively long tail should distinguish it from the others. Faill.—As soon as the young are able to care for themselves the pipits gather into flocks and begin to drift away from their breeding grounds before the end of August. We begin to see them in New England in September, in flocks of varying sizes from a dozen to a hundred or more, mainly coastwise on the salt marshes, on the mud flats, or along the beaches, but often farther inland along tidal streams, in open fields, and on wind-swept hills. They are commoner here in fall than in spring and usually remain to enliven the brown and dreary landscape until the frosts of late November drive them farther south. By this time the eastern birds have entirely deserted their northern breeding grounds. In the meantime the western birds have drifted down from their alpine heights, above timberline, and are spread out over the plains and lowlands. Migrating birds are often seen in enormous flocks, as some continue their migration beyond our borders into Mexico and beyond. Winter—Although the American pipit extends its winter range as far south as Guatemala, most of them spend the winter within the limits of the United States, fairly commonly as far north as Cali- fornia and Ohio; farther north it is rarely seen in winter. Dr. Stone (1937) draws the following pen picture of winter pipits in New Jersey: On some day of midwinter when there has been no blanket of snow such as sometimes covers the landscape, even at such a supposed ‘semi-tropic’ region as Cape May, we gaze over the broad monotonous expanses of plowed fields and conclude that here at least bird life is absent. We contrast these silent brown stretches with the swamp edges and their bursts of sparrow conversation or with the old pasture fields where Meadowlarks are sputtering. But let us start to cross these apparently deserted fields and immediately with a weak dee-dee, dee-dee, a small brown bird flushes from almost beneath our feet, then another and another, displaying a flash of white feathers in the tail as they rise. In a moment they have settled again farther on and are lost to sight against the brown background as suddenly as they appeared. We advance again and now the ground before us seems fairly to belch forth birds, as with one accord, the whole flock takes wing, and with light, airy, undulating and irregular flight, courses away over the fields, now clearly defined against the sky, now swallowed up in the all pervading brown of the landscape. AMERICAN PIPIT oo In the sand hills of North Carolina Mr. Skinner (1928) saw pipits “only in the largest hay fields, winter-wheat fields, old cornfields where the stalks are all down, and in old cowpea fields.” He did not find them in plowed fields. In Florida it is a common winter resident, abundant in the more northern parts; we found it on the Kissimmee Prairie and on old fields and marshes elsewhere; A. H. Howell (1982) says that it is occasionally seen on sand dunes and sea beaches. M. G. Vaiden tells me that it occurs in Mississippi as a migrant in both spring and fall, and “occasionally in winter in great numbers. They are usually found on the slopes of the levee; I have noted flocks of at least 200 feeding on the levee.” Mr. Cogswell (MS.) says of the winter status of the pipit in southern California: “This species is a common winter visitant in all suitable localities below snow level; I have found it most abundantly on wet pasturelands and in the fields bordering coastal marshes, but they are also present in any fields with short or no vegetation. On Febru- ary 10, 1940, they were particularly abundant in the Chino Creek Valley and all over the nearby rolling hills, where flocks of hundreds foraged on the ground between the rows of growing grain, which completely hid them from view until they flew.” DISTRIBUTION Range.—The species is circumpolar, breeding in Europe, Asia, and northern North America and wintering south to northern Africa, southern Asia, and Central America. Breeding range.—The breeding range of the American races of the pipit is in the Arctic-Alpine regions north to northern Alaska (Meade River, about 100 miles south of Point Barrow, and Collison Point) ; northern Yukon (Herschel Island) ; northern Mackenzie (Kittigazuit, Franklin Bay, and Coronation Gulf) ; southern Somerset Island (Fort Ross) ; northern Baffin Island (Arctic Bay and Ponds Inlet); and about 75° north latitude on the west coast of Greenland (Devils Thumb Island). East to west coast of Greenland (Devils Thumb Island and Upernivik) ; eastern Baffin Island (Eglinton Fjord, Cumberland Sound, and Frobisher Bay) ; Labrador (Port Burwell, Hebron, Okkak, and Battle Harbor) ; Newfoundland (Cape Norman, Twillingate, and Cape Bonavista). South to Newfoundland (Cape Bonavista and the Lewis Hills), southeastern Quebec (Grosse Isle, Magdalen Islands rarely; Mount Albert and Tabletop, Gaspé Peninsula) ; northern Maine (summit of Mount Katahdin) ; northern Ontario (Moose Fac- tory) ; northern Manitoba (Churchill) ; central Mackenzie (Artillery Lake and Fort Providence) ; southwestern Alberta (Banff National Park) ; western Montana (Glacier National Park, Big Snowy Moun- 36 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM tains, and Bear Tooth Mountains) ; Wyoming (Big Horn Mountains, Wind River Mountains, and the Medicine Bow Mountains) ; Colo- rado (Longs Peak, Mount Audubon, Seven Lakes, Pikes Peak, and Medano Creek) ; central northern New Mexico (Taos Mountains and Pecos Baldy) ; northeastern Utah (Uintah Mountains) ; central Idaho (Salmon River Mountains) ; and northern Oregon (Wallowa Moun- tains and, possibly, Mount Hood) ; has also been found in summer near the summit of Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen, Calif., but not surely breeding. West to Oregon (Mount Hood) ; the Cascades of Washington (Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, and Mount Rai- nier) ; British Columbia (mountains near Princeton, near Doch-da-on Creek, Summit, and Atlin; southwestern Yukon (Burwash Landing and Tecpee Lake); and the Aleutian Islands and western Alaska (Frosty Peak, Unalaska, the Near Islands, Nunivak Island, Wales, Kobuk River, and Meade River) ; has been found also on St. Law- rence Island. Winter range.—The pipit occurs in winter north to southwestern British Columbia (southern Vancouver Island, occasionally) ; western Washington (Tacoma, Nisqually Flats, and Vancouver); Oregon (Portland, Corvallis, and along the Malheur River); Utah (Ogden Valley, Utah Lake, and St. George) ; central to southern Arizona (Fort Whipple, Fort Verde, and Tucson) ; southern New Mexico (San An- tonio and Carlsbad) ; southern and eastern Texas (Fort Clark, Kerr- ville, Austin, Waco, and Commerce) ; occasionally central Arkansas (Van Buren); northern Louisiana (Shreveport and Monroe) ; Tennessee, uncommon (Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Johnson City); and southern Virginia (Blacksburg, Naruna, and Virginia Beach) ; occasionally north to northern Ohio (Huron and Painesville) ; New Jersey (Seaside Park) ; Long Island (Long Beach and Orient) ; Connecticut (Saybrook) ; and Massachusetts (Newburyport). East to the Atlantic Coast States from southern Virginia (Virginia Beach) to southern Florida (Fernandina, St. Augustine, and Daytona Beach, Kissimmee, and Key West rarely). South to Florida (Key West, Fort Myers, and St. Marks) ; the Gulf coast to southern Texas (Rockport and Brownsville) ; eastern Mexico (Rodriguez, Nuevo Leén; Puebla; and Huajuapam, Oaxaca); Guatemala; and northern El Salvador (Volcan de Santa Ana), the southernmost place that it has been re- corded. West to Guatemala (Duefas); Oaxaca (Tehuantepec) ; Sinaloa (Mazatlan) ; Lower California (lia Paz and San Quintin) ; the valleys and coast of California (La Jolla, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Napa, and Eureka); western Oregon (Coos Bay and Netarts) ; western Washington (Nisqually Flats) ; and southern Van- couver Island, British Columbia. The range as outlined applies to all the North American races, of which three are now recognized. The western pipit (A. s. pacificus) AMERICAN PIPIT ae breeds from southeastern Alaska through the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and in the Cascades to Oregon; the Rocky Mountain pipit (A. s. alticola) breeds in the Rocky Mountain region from Mon- tana to New Mexico; the eastern pipit (A. s. rubescens) breeds from Alaska to Greenland south to southern Yukon and Mackenzie to Quebec, Newfoundland, and Mount Katahdin, Maine. In winter the races are mingled. Migration—Late dates of spring departure are: EK! Salvador— Volean de Santa Ana, April 16. Lower California—San José del Cabo, May 8. Sonora—Granados, May 6. Florida—Pensacola, April 27. Georgia—Athens, May 9. South Carolina—Charleston, April 22. North Carolina—Pea Island, May 16. District of Columbia— Washington, May 14. Pennsylvania—Erie, May 12. New York— Potter, May 16. Mississippi—Biloxi, April 29. Louisiana—Lobdell, May2. Arkansas—Lake City, April29. Kentucky—Bowling Green, May 8. Oberlin, May 24. Michigan—McMillan, May 28. Ontario— Rossport, May 29. Missouri—St. Louis, May 2. Minnesota—Lake Vermillion, May 27. Texas—Somerset, May 1. Kansas—Onaga, May 23. Alberta—Genevis, May 26. British Columbia—Okanagan Landing, May 17. Early dates of spring arrival are: District of Columbia—Washing- ton, February 16. Pennsylvania—State College, February 28. New York—Ithaca, March 15. Massachusetts—Amherst, March 27. Maine—Auburn, May 2. New Brunswick—Chatham, May 6. Que- bec—Kamouraska, May 6. Ohio—Oberlin, March 4. Ontario— London, May 1. Michigan—Detroit, March 31. Wisconsin—Mil- waukee, April 20. Kansas—Lawrence, March 12. Nebraska— Hastings, March 10. South Dakota—Sioux Falls, March 27. North Dakota—Charlson, April 28. Manitoba—Aweme, April 15; Churchill, May 25. Saskatchewan—LEastend, April 21. Wyoming— Laramie, April 9. Utah—Brigham, April 4. Montana—Helena, April9. Alberta—Stony Plain, April 8. Mackenzie—Simpson, May 2. British Columbia—Chilliwack, April 6. Alaska—Ketchikan, April 26; Fort Kenai, May 6. Late dates of fall departure are: Alaska—Wainwright, September 28. British Columbia—Comox, November 9. Mackenzie—Simpson, October 16. Alberta—Glenevis, October 4. Saskatchewan—Eastend, October 16. Montana—Fortine, October 27. Wyoming—Laramie, November 6. Manitoba—Aweme, October 28. North Dakota—Ar- gusville, October 28. South Dakota—Lake Poinsett, November 2. Nebraska—Gresham, November 1. Kansas—Onaga, November 25. Minnesota—Minneapolis, October 31. Wisconsin—North Freedom, November 1. [hinois—Chicago, November 3. Michigan—Sault Ste. Marie, November 8. Ontario—Toronto, November 13. Ohio— Youngstown, November 22. Quebec—Montreal, November 4. 38 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Maine—Machias, November 2. Massachusetts—Harvard, Novembér 9. New York—New York, November 27. District of Columbia— Washington, December 23. Early dates of fall arrival are: Alberta—Glenevis, August 19. Mon- tana—Missoula, September 4. Minnesota—Hallock, September 4. Wisconsin—Madison, September 19. Ontario—Ottawa, September 9. Michigan—Blaney, September 19. Illinois—Hinsdale, Septem- ber 14. Kentucky—Lexington, October 10. Tennessee—Memphis, October 10. Mississippi—Ellisville, October 19. Louisiana—New Orleans, October 10. Massachusetts—Danvers, September 14. New York—Orient, September 2. Pennsylvania—Doylestown, September 9. District of Columbia—Washington, September 23. Virginia— Wytheville, October 24. North Carolina—Greensboro, October 17. South Carolina—Sullivans Island, September 10. Georgia—Round Oak, October 16. Florida—Fort Myers, September 26. Texas— Somerset, October 7. Chihuahua—Chihuahua, October 9; Lower Cal- ifornia, San Andrés, September 21. Very few pipits have been banded, and the 10 recovery records are all of birds retrapped at the place of banding one or two years later. Casual records.—In November 1848 a flock visited Bermuda, from which two birds were shot, the date of one specimen being given as November 26. The American pipit has been twice collected on the island of Helgoland, an immature on November 11, 1851, and an adult on May 17, 1870. An immature bird was collected on Septem- ber 30, 1910, on the island of St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Egg dates Labrador : 21 records, June 10 to July 23; 12 records, June 18 to 30, indicating the height of the season. Alaska: 10 records, June 8 to 28. Colorado: 12 records, June 22 to July 26; 9 records, June 25 to 30. ANTHUS SPINOLETTA JAPONICUS Temminck and Schlegel JAPANESE PIPIT CONTRIBUTED BY WINSOR MARRETT TYLER HABITS A single specimen of the Japanese pipit, the only individual known to have occurred in the Western Hemisphere, was taken on Nunivak Island, Alaska, on September 10, 1947. Harry S. Swarth (1934) de- scribes the event of its capture thus: Harrold’s [the collector’s] note-book contains the following entry : “September 10, 1927, Cape Etolin, Nunivak Island.