310 Mr. W. Thompson's Contributions to the Fauna of Ireland^ 



brown band, which reaches from the side of the bill to the eye ; 

 throat white. 



This is a very interesting species to the ornithologist from the cir- 

 cumstance of its presenting the characters of different genera. Its 

 general aspect — body plumage, delicate tarsi and feet — is that of a 

 Tringa, but in the form of the head, breadth between the eyes and 

 broad base of bill we are reminded of the genus Scolopax, or true 

 snipes, as we likewise are in the brown and white banding of the 

 head, in which latter respect it likewise resembles the whimbrel 

 (Numenius phceopus). The very small rudimentary membrane be- 

 tween the base of the middle and outer toe, mentioned by Temminck 

 as the chief character on which it has been raised to the rank of a 

 genus by MM. Koch and Naumann, is a most trivial distinction, it 

 being in the least degree only more developed than in the Tringa va- 

 riabilis and T, subarquata. Except in the head and bill, the whole 

 bird is in form and plumage an ordinary-looking Tringa. 



In the continental countries south of our latitude in which this 

 species has been met with, it is considered very rare, nor was it 

 known to be otherwise in the north of Europe until Mr. Dann lately 

 visited Norway and Lapland for the purpose of studying the birds 

 which frequent those countries in the breeding season. In some 

 places he found this Tringa to be by no means uncommon, and to 

 Mr. Yarrell's beautiful work on 'British Birds' (vol. ii. p. 638) he 

 contributed a full and admirable account of its habits, which were 

 before unknown — the figure of the bird in this work is most charac- 

 teristic. Temminck mentions specimens having been sent from 

 Borneo, Sumatra and Timor. 



American Wigeoii, Mareca ^mmcflwa, Wilson (sp.), Amer. Ornit. 

 vol. iii. p. 109. pi. 69. Jardine^s edit. ; Yarrell, Brit. Birds, 

 vol. iii. p. 196. 



Towards the end of February 1844, Henry Bell, an intelligent 

 man of middle age, who since he could carry a gun has been a 

 wildfowl- (and more especially a wigeon-) shooter in Belfast bay, and 

 for the last eight or nine winters has given up his whole time to the 

 pursuit, earning by it his livelihood, visited Strangford lough " pro- 

 fessionally " with his punt and swivel-gun. Hearing on a dark night 

 the call of wigeon*, he fired towards the place whence the sound 

 proceeded, and picked up a single bird, which differed in plumage 

 from any he had ever seen. Its form at once marked this bird 

 to his eye as a wigeon of some kind, but in a state of plumage un- 

 like that of the common species of either sex at any age : of this 

 he was a good judge from many hundreds having passed through 

 his hands, and from his being very observant of the species of birds 

 and the changes of plumage through which they pass. He de- 

 scribed it as a wigeon in the plumage of a teal. The large markings 



* According to Wilson's description of the call of the American wigeon, 

 it is very like that of the European species. 



