DUNLIN, OR OX-BIRD. 



(Tringa alpina, Lin. Wilson, vii. p. 25. pi. 56. fig. 2. Red-backed 

 Sandpiper, [summer dress.] T. variabilis, Tejim. also T. cinclus, 

 Lin. (The Purre.) Wilson, vii. p. 39. pi. 57. fig. 3. [winter dress.] 

 Phil. Museum, No. 4094, and 4126.) 



Sp. Charact. — Bill black, longer than the head, slightly curved at 

 the point ; rump blackish ; middle tail feathers longest ; tarsus 

 little more than an inch long. — Summer plumage varied with black 



. and rufous, beneath black and white. Winter dress ashy-brown, 

 beneath wliite. 



The Dunlin, or Red-backed Sandpiper of the United 

 States, according to the season of the year, is met with 

 throughout the northern hemisphere ; penetrating, in Ameri- 

 ca, during the summer season, to the utmost habitable verge 

 of the Arctic circle, and even breed in that remotest of lands, 

 the ever wintry shores of Melville Peninsula. They like- 

 wise inhabit Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Alps of 

 Siberia, and the coasts of the Caspian. In the southern 

 hemisphere, they sometimes even wander as far as the Cape 

 of Good Hope ; and are found in Jamaica, other of the West 

 India Islands, and Cayenne. In the autumn they are seen 

 around Vera Cruz, and with other Sandpipers, probably, ex- 



