That is strange, and probably a bug. You can use up to 2 dots and the last dot is handled first, consing x and (z . nil) then consing y and (x (z . nil)). '(w x . y . z) gives (y w x z).
I can almost see how this bug appeared. Searching for the first part of a dotted expression yields (w x), and then searching for the 2nd part yields z. For some reason the expression becomes '(y . (w x z)); that I cannot explain without looking at the code.
