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PAPERS READ. 



NOTE ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE SANDERLING 

 (CALIDRIS ARENARIA) IN BORNEO. 



By Henry Seebohm. 



(Commionicated hy Dr. E. P. Ramsay.) 



In the last number of the Records of the Australian Museum 

 (ii., p. 22) sundry errors respecting the Sanderling are published, 

 which ought not to be allowed to remain uncorrected. First, the 

 existence of two races of the Sanderling is assumed. To the best 

 of my knowledge this is a pure myth,, which has never been 

 supported by a shred of evidence and is opposed to all known facts 

 bearing upon the case. The only authority for the myth that I 

 know of is the bare statement that examples of this species from 

 the New World seem to be constantly larger than those from the 

 Old (Newton, Ibis, 1859, p. 256). This is quite contrary to my 

 experience. Twelve examples in my collection from the New 

 World vary in length of wing from 4*7 to 5 "05 and average 4-84 

 inches, whilst 27 examples from the Old World also vary from 

 4-7 to 5-05 and average 4-81 inches. Secondly, the assertion that 

 Java seems to be the only island of the Malay Archipelago in 

 which the presence of the Sanderling has been determined ceased 

 to be true in 1881, when Mr. Pretyman procured an example on 

 the Tampussuk River, in North-west Borneo. The occurrence of 

 the Sanderling in Borneo is also confirmed by a second example 

 procured on Baram Point (Everett, Ibis, 1890, p. 465). Botli 

 these examples are in the British Museum. Thirdly, the ignorance 

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