256 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



any doubt about its being the common species, has been 

 the means of misleading many. Once more the bird had 

 to be resuscitated, see Yarrell, B. B., ist ed., II., p. 545, 

 where a certain birdstufifer professes to have received one 

 unskinued from Cromer. What is become of the valuable (!) 

 specimen I cannot say, nor does it signify, Mr. Stevenson 

 having gone into the case some time ago, and satisfied him- 

 self that it was set up from a foreign skin (B. of Norf., II., 



p. 234)- 



After this, a variety of spurious records found their way 

 from time to time into print, for the most part based on a 

 misapprehension of the correct coloration. I will take them 

 seriatim. The first has reference to Shetland (Zool., 1844, 

 p. 462), but is explained away in the " Birds of Shetland " 

 (pi 195). The second to Whitby, and is not explained at 

 present. It was an adult female, Q) stated to have been 

 shot on the 29th of March, Mr. E, T, Higgins saw it in 

 the flesh (Zool. 2456), but the intestines had been removed. 

 Doubts having been raised, I enquired if it could have been 

 "drawn" and packed in salt, and sent over from America 

 (cf Zool, 1293), but Mr, Higgins says it certainly was not 

 salted. Twelve months previously he had thought that he 

 had seen one at Bridlington (Zool., 2147), which is about 

 thirty miles south of Whitby. 



A short period elapsed, and in July, 1849, an announce- 

 ment appeared from Mr, J, Duff (Zool, 2499), that within a 

 few days of the occurrence at Whitby, one had been taken 

 at Bishop Auckland ; and after a brief interval a second 

 was reported from that locality: but they proved on a 

 more critical examination to be only examples of the Green 

 Sandpiper, (Hancock, B. of Northum, and Dur., p. 123.) 



Mr. Hogg quotes Mr. J. Grey for its occurrence on the 

 river Tees, (Zool. 1173), but I saw, I believe, the very bird 

 in Mr. Grey's collection at Stockton, and I am sorry to say 

 that this again was a Green Sandpiper, 



