Courtship.—Mr. Whitaker writes to me:
The time for nesting varies as much as 10 days between the few pairs which frequent the lower levels and the bulk of the birds which nest on the high grounds. On the lowlands a pair of birds will take up their quarters near the place they intend to nest soon after their arrival and the cock bird may be seen high up in the air uttering his nesting song. He will sometimes be so high that he appears but a speck against the blue sky. His loud notes carry a long distance and sound like tweda-tweda-tweda uttered quickly and continually for quite a long time.
Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1920) writes:
The courtship song of the greater yellow-legs comes up from the marshes of Essex County throughout the month of May, but is heard in greater volume during the two middle weeks. It has a sweet and pleading character and seems to say wull yer? wull yer? Although it differs from the flickerlike call described in the original Memoir, which may be heard at the same time, it, too, has a decided flickerlike flavor. It is heard throughout the day, but in the evening until it is nearly dark the marshes often resound with the plaintive callings.
H. S. Swarth (1911) observed some greater yellow-legs on the wooded islands of southeastern Alaska in April, of which he says:
At this time the males were going through various courting antics, posing with upraised, quivering wings, or running in circles on the sand bars around the object of their attentions, and incessantly uttering the shrill whistle peculiar to the species.
Nesting.—Considering the fact that the greater yellow-legs is such a common and widely distributed bird, remarkably little has been published on its nesting habits, and comparatively few nests have been found, in spite of the fact that it does not go very far north to breed and its breeding grounds are fairly accessible. I know from personal experience with it that its nest is very hard to find. I have spent many hours hunting for its nest on the high tundras of central Newfoundland, where it breeds commonly, and secured only one set of eggs. The male bird is very noisy and solicitous, flying out to meet the intruder while he is a long way from the nest, alighting on any available spruce tree, stump, rock, or other eminince, pouring out a steady stream of invective cries and showing the greatest anxiety, but giving not the slightest clue as to the location of the nest. And the female sits so closely on the nest that it is only by the merest chance that she can be flushed. The high tundra around Gafftopsail and Quarry, Newfoundland, is an immense tract of boggy ground, full of small ponds and muddy splashes, interspersed with mossy hummocks and outcroppings of rocks. My set was taken there on June 9, 1912; it was in a mere hollow in the moss on a small hummock in a shallow, muddy pond hole; the female was flushed, and the four eggs were fresh.
Mr. Whitaker has sent me the following notes on the nesting habits of the greater yellow-legs in Newfoundland:
On June 17, 1919, whilst walking over a big tundra with a friend (Geo. H. Stuart, 3rd), a yellow-shank which flew up from the side of a water hole showed considerable excitement, there were a number of small ponds just there dotted with mossy islands; we beat all the ground between these ponds but could find nothing, however, we noticed that each time we approached the edge of the tundra where a stunted growth of scattered dead larch trees were, and where the wintergreen, laurel, and labrador tea bushes merged into the sphagnum of the tundra, the bird seemed more excited and flew close round our heads shrieking out his harsh notes tee erk, tee erk, tee erk more fiercely. We decided to hide away at some distance and watch, thinking this must be the hen bird and we would wait until she returned to the nest. We retired several hundred yards and hid in some spruces, the bird following part of the way and alighted on the top of a bush growing in the moss and there remained for upwards of an hour, then flew to a pond near, settling on an island, fed for a while, and after preening went to sleep; this seemed absolutely hopeless, so we decided to have another look over the ground. Each of us had a long pole with a handkerchief tied to the end, with these we covered all the ground which appeared suitable most thoroughly without any results. I then remembered hunting for green-shanks nests in the north of Scotland; there the nests were usually placed on a dry ridge, and seeing such a ridge near the edge of the tundra I suggested to my friend that we should go and look it over. We had not proceeded in its direction more than 10 yards when right in front of me and not more than 6 feet away on the top of a dry peat hummock amongst some scrubby tea plant squatted a yellow-shank with a downy young one on her back. I called my friend, who was only a few yards away; he came and we both watched the bird for some time before putting her up. When she did go there were four downy young in a very slight hollow without any trace of nesting material but a few leaves which had probably blown in. Amongst these we found some fragments of eggshell.