On St. George Island the high upland tundra has been chosen for breeding ground. Here, among the reindeer "mosses" and light gray, lichen-covered rocks the sandpipers reign supreme in the fog. Some speculating may be indulged in to find a reason for so unusual a choice of locality. Elevations up to 500 feet are sought. Perhaps they shun the seacoasts on account of the presence there of large numbers of foxes. During all history this has been a greater fox island than either St. Paul or St. Matthew. On the latter island in June and July the birds may be found in large numbers around and back of the driftwood piles. If it were not for this fact being known, we might suspect that on St. George the light gray tundra was selected for protective purposes, the birds themselves being distinguished chiefly by their light colors. St. Paul Island, for some unaccountable reason, is not chosen as a breeding ground except by a very few pairs. In 1919 not over a dozen were found during the entire nesting season, when almost all of the available areas were seen.
On the breeding grounds of St. George and St. Matthew the birds are very common, and from one to a dozen are in almost constant attendance upon the visitor. They sight him from afar and fly to meet him. Some bird will almost always try to lead him astray. If followed, it flies from knoll to knoll, often not more than 20 yards away. It remains in front of the visitor regardless of the direction he may take; whether toward or from the nest, makes no difference. After several minutes of this a sudden flight, with the familiar "song," is taken to some distant hill and the searcher for a nest is left confused and confounded.
A search for the nest will exhaust the patience of any except the most persistent collector. Messrs. Compton and Partch have been more successful than anyone else in locating them, and all of us agree that when a bird flies to meet the visitor, as just described, it is a pure waste of time to watch or follow it. Every method known to us of locating nests by watching the actions of the parents has failed. We have located nests and then endeavored to establish rules for guidance with others, but no definite facts could be determined. It was finally agreed that it was useless to watch a bird under any circumstances more than 15 minutes. If the location of the nest is not disclosed in that time, it is safe to assume that the mate is on it, and it might be hours before the guard would go there. In the meantime it may fly half a mile away and forget to come back, even to tease the hopeful collector lying concealed in the mist and fog behind some cheerless rock. No definite range can be ascribed to any one pair of birds, because those off the nests mingle indiscriminately. Very often a bird will fly completely out of the range of vision in the fog.
The action of a bird leaving a nest is unmistakable, and can always be recognized, once it is learned. It is a quick, excited, jerky flight, very close to the ground, and the bird goes but a very few yards until it feigns injury in its endeavor to entice the intruder away. It will always flutter in front of a person, even though he walk directly toward the nest. When the bird is seen to fly, the eggs are even more inconspicuous and difficult to find unless the exact spot from which it flew be located. Compton thus flushed a bird which he knew had a nest, but he was at a loss to find it. At last he left his cane as nearly as possible where the nest should have been and repaired to a near-by rock to watch and wait. In a few minutes the bird returned to the eggs, which were located about a yard from the stick. When the bird is flushed from a nest it seldom happens that the other parent is near.
The nest is a mere depression about three and a half inches wide by two and a half inches deep. Most of the material is removed, but it is evidently packed down to a certain extent. No foreign material is carried at all. The nest is usually, but not necessarily, on some very slightly elevated ground and among the lichens called "reindeer moss." Some nests have been found where there was an admixture of Hypnum moss and again where the dwarf willows creep, rootlike, beneath the surface.
Eggs.—I can not do better than to quote again from Mr. Hanna (1921); he writes:
The normal set of eggs consists of four. A greater number has never been found, and a less number only when it was uncertain if the full set had been laid. As much as three days may intervene between egg laying, but usually the four are deposited on successive days. When one set of eggs is taken, another will be laid. But the same nest is not used the second time, the contentions of some natives to the contrary notwithstanding. A set of eggs found as late as July 24, 1917, certainly indicated that two may be laid in the same season on rare occasions. One set is the rule.
The color of the eggs is, as would be expected, somewhat variable. The lightest set examined in connection with this report has the ground color "greenish glaucous." From this there is perfect gradation through "court gray" and "light olive gray" to "deep olive buff" in the darkest set. Variation in any particular set is very slight. Spots are large and bold as a rule. They vary in size from 15 millimeters to less than one, and they are usually massed about the larger end. In one case the eggs are uniformly spotted with small spots all over. In none is the spotting heaviest on the smaller end (reversed eggs). Spots are usually inclined to be round, but occasionally they are in the form of streaks arranged roughly in spiral form. Only rarely are they banded about the larger end. In two cases a narrow black line was produced spirally on the larger end. The coloration of the spots varies from "snuff brown" to "sepia" and from "cinnamon brown" to "mummy brown." In some cases they are "raw umber." The darkest shades occur where the spots overlap and some deep-seated ones are "pale aniline lilac" or "pale" to "deep quaker drab." Only rarely is the outline of a spot not sharp.
The average dimensions derived from the above series of 72 eggs are: Length, 39.473 and breadth 27.468. Those which showed the extreme measurements were 42.0 by 27.8; 35 by 27.4; 37.6 by 39, and 39.1 by 26.4.
Young.—The period of incubation is said to be about 20 days, in which both sexes share. William Palmer (1899) says:
The young leave the nest soon after hatching and are thoroughly well concealed by their mimicry of the confusing mixture of mosses, lichens, and other forms of vegetation which abounds and are so well intermingled on these islands. It requires much patience and a close scrutiny to detect a crouching young, even when it is directly within reach. Obedient to their mother's cries they flatten themselves with head and neck extended; with each yard of the ground precisely similar in pattern and color with every other yard, and the parents, especially the female, trying their best to coax us in other directions, and the uncertainty as to the exact location of the young, all combine against the collector, so that few specimens reward a tramp that seems exasperatingly needless. The young will not move, though one stands with the foot touching them, but when once handled and released they scamper off with all the quickness their long legs can give them. When we invade the vicinity of a nest or young it is amusing to watch the antics of the female. She invariably flies in front and flutters with feigned lameness but a few feet away. If the ground is rough it is more amusing to watch the precipitancy of her flight until she disappears in a hollow, to reappear in a moment on the other side, cautiously turning round and eying us to see if we are following. She always keeps in front of us, no matter which way we turn, and will continue thus for several hundred yards, when she will suddenly fly off to some distance and after waiting awhile will return to the vicinity of the nest or young.
Mr. Hanna (1921) writes: