The Aleutian sandpiper arrives at St. Michaels early in May of each year, and in considerable numbers, being generally, on their arrival, in the dark plumage, which is changed for the summer by the first of June on this locality. On their appearance they are strictly littoral-maritime, resorting to the larger bowlders and rocky shelves covered with seaweed, among which these birds industriously search for slugs and other marine worms. Usually several birds are together, rarely singly, and seldom over 8 or 10 in a flock. Dr. Leonhard Stejneger (1885) says that, in the Commander Islands: In March their ranks are reinforced by newcomers which have wintered on more hospitable shores, and in the latter part of the month enormous flocks of 500 or more swarm along the beach, especially on the north shore. About one month later the great flocks dissolve into small companies, which, following the water courses, disperse over the whole island, settling in pairs on suitable places at the beaches, on the tundras, or on the mountain plateaus, this bird being in fact one of the most numerous and the most equally distributed species of land birds on the islands. _Courtship._--We frequently observed the charming song flight of this sandpiper in the Aleutian Islands. The birds were especially abundant on Tanaga Island, where we found them nesting on the little knolls or hummocks on the tundra in a large alluvial plain back of the beach hillocks. The males were very active and noisy, indulging in their hovering song flights, rising 30 or 40 feet in the air and fluttering down while pouring out a delightful twittering song. Also, while flying about or while standing on some prominent hummock, they gave their loud, musical melodious calls of the upland plover; these loud notes were not heard anywhere except on their breeding grounds and were probably notes of greeting or of warning to their mates. Doctor Stejneger (1885) writes: