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Show 1897.] OR RARE BIRDS' EGGS. 891 ceived notions) an almost unexpected reward. The story of the nest and eggs of the Pigmy Curlew or Curlew-Sandpiper having been found in Greenland, unlikely as it was irom the first, may be dismissed from consideration after the explanation by Colonel Feilden (Ibis, 1879, p. 486) of the way in which the mistake arose, and thus we have no positive information as to its breeding-haunts, except that which was furnished by the observations of Von Middendorff to be immediately cited, and it gradually became evident that in this species, as with some others of its congeners, tbe focus of existence was limited to a comparatively small area, though the early age at which the young wander in many directions to great distances from their home rendered its determination difficult, and served to induce a belief, for which there was really no foundation, that the species might breed over a very considerable extent of circumpolar land-a belief that was hardly dispelled until tbe publication of Professor Pal men's work on the ornithology of the Voyage of the ' Vega'1. Von Middendorff (Sib. Beise, Bd. ii. Th. 2, i. p. 220) says of Tringa suharquutu that he met with one on the Taimyr Biver (lat. 74° N.) on the 4th of June, and that soon after it was dispersed over the swampy tracts of the Tundra to breed, and that a bird shot on tbe 15th contained an egg nearly ready for exclusion (fast ausgetragenes El). He adds that the nearer he approached the mountains, the rarer became the species, and also that though he met with one on the Boganida on the 27th of May, it did not seem to breed there. Thus, as I informed Mr. Popbam before his departure last spring, the probability seemed to be against his falling in with a breeding-place of this Sandpiper unless he was able to get to the East and North of the Boganida country, a difficult task to accomplish, while he did not propose in his recent journey to go beyond tbe valley of the Jenisei. His pleasure therefore may be imagined when, on the 3rd of July, he watched a Tringa suhurquuta go three times to her nest on an island in the mouth of that river, and from that nest he took the four slightly incubated eggs which he has kindly entrusted me, in his absence, to exhibit to-night. The note with which he has favoured m e states that the nest was " a rather deep hollow in the reindeer-moss on a low ridge of ground somewhat drier than the surrounding swampy tundra, in much the same sort of place that a Grey Plover would choose." To ensure the identification of the eggs Mr. Popham shot the hen bird from the nest. These eggs measure from 1*47 to 1*4 by from 1*02 to 1 inch, and can be, I think, best described by saying that except in size they closely resemble those of the Common Snipe, Gallinago ccelestis; but it would be quite in accordance with xperience to find that others should exhibit a considerable departure from that pattern. 1 Bidrag till Kanuedomen om Sibiriska Isbafskustens Fogelfauna m.m., bearbetade af J. A. Pahrien (Vega-Expeditionens Vetenskapliga Jakttagelser, v. p. 309, tab. 3). Stockholm : 1887. |