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July, 1912 NOTES ON WADING BIRDS OF BARR LAKE REGION, COLORADO 123 from the shore line on a small island and was upon thoroughly dry ground. The nest was discovered through the tell-tale actions of the parent. That the nests are wonderfully well concealed both through the protective col- oration of the eggs and through the cunning of the parent birds is beyond question; yet this alone would hardly explain our lack of success in finding these nests, for had the birds been actually nesting in the nulnbers their relative abundance would seeln to indicate, it would hardly have been possible for us to fail in our search so consistently. The suggestion was offered that while the birds were quite abundant each year, possibly only a small proportion of them were breeding birds, and that the non-breeders joined the breeding birds in a demonstration when the intruder approached the nesting site. The fact that throughout the nesting sea- son Phalaropes were seen in flocks of various sizes would seem to support this theory. Recurvirostra americana. AvOCET. Among the most interesting experiences during the Barr lake work was our study of the nesting Avocets. The birds first inade their appearance the last week in April (1907) and on account of their size and conspicuous coloring they were easy to keep track of. We kept a sharp lookout for their nesting site throughout May and June. and finally decided that they must be breeding on a small island far out in the big lake. A trip to the island on June 30, failed to reveal any nests although the birds showed every evi4 dence of having nests nearby. On July 4, 1907, we visited the island again and as we landed, a female Avocet flew up about twenty-five yards back from shore and upon walking directly to this spot we found a nest containing four eggs. About twenty yards from this point we found a second and thirty Fig. 50. NESTING SITE OF AVOCET ON ISLAND yards farther on a third, each containing four incubated eggs. The nests were all located in very similar locations, among a young growth of cockle-burrs not over six inches in height and which had probably grown at least half of that since the eggs were laid. The cockle-burrs formed a belt about ten yards wide clear around the island just below the dense blue-stem and other rank grass with which the island was covered and on ground that was under water during the high water of the spring although inundated for a short time only. Two of the nests were very crude affairs, being a mere shallow hollow in the sand with a very few dead weed stalks of short leng-ths arranged around the eggs. The