36 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



secomlaries grayish, with wliite edges. In the 12th edit, is said : ^^Alha 

 immaculata sunt . . . tectrices alarum^^^ while tliose (upper wiiig- 

 coverts) in the summer plumage of glottis Bechst. are dark grayish- 

 brown with a black stripe along the shafts, in the autumnal plumage 

 brownish-gray with such a stripe, and in the young blackish-brown with 

 rusty-gray edges. Further in the same edition Linnaeus says : '■^Remujes 

 primores scapo albo^^ ; in the glottis Bechst. only the shaft of the first 

 quill is white, while the shafts of the remaining primaries are black. 

 From these quotations it is evident that the glottis of Linnaeus is a bird 

 totally different from the species so named by Bechstein, while most 

 authors since Bechstein's time, however, mean the bird of the latter 

 when they are speaking about Totanns glottis (Lin.). 



It remains to determine to which species the desciiptions of Linn^us 

 really belong. In order to clear up this question it will be necessary to 

 compare those characters which in the above-mentioned three editions 

 do uot agree. It will thus be seen that while in the diagnoses the legs 

 are said to be greenish ['■'' pedihus vircscentibus''^), they are given as plum- 

 beous {'■'' pedeo plumhei'''') in the description of the Fauna. In the same 

 work is said: ^'■pectus griseum,^^ hut in the 12th edition, ^'^ Alba imma- 

 culata sunt pectus. . . ." From these disagreements of the descriptions 

 it seeiis to be very probable that Linn^us in this case did not give his 

 diagnosis and descriptions from the specimens themselves, but ouly from 

 the statements of earlier Avriters. The phrase '^ i)edes plumbci'^ may 

 thus have been taken from Strom, who, in his Siindmors Beskrivelse, I, 

 p. 235, quotes the Linnaean diagnosis in the following manner : " Nu- 

 menius pedibus virescentihus (more correctly plumbei). . . ." This 

 opinion seems also to be well founded when one comj)ares the very 

 meager description of the Fauna (L c.) with the ranch fuller descriiJtious 

 of other species, of which Linn^us had specimens before him when 

 describing. It will therefore be very useful to know which species the 

 authors cited by LtnnyEUS may have meant. In the 12th edit. Linn.eus 

 quotes as synonymous Limosa grisea major Briss., ed. 5, p. 272, t. 24, f. 

 2. To this species Brisson himself cites the same authors, which are 

 given by Linnaeus, and besides, the diagnosis of Linn^i Systema, 10th 

 edit., and Fauna, 1st ed. From the excellent description of Brisson it is 

 unquestionable that his species is Limosa lapponica in winter-])himage. 

 The description of Strom (1. c.) also shows that the bird in question 

 belongs to this species. It then only remains to determine whether the 

 characters given by Linn^us agree with those of L. lapponica. This 

 species has in fact the base of the lower mandible reddish, as described 

 above, and also the shafts of the first quills white. The two other marks, 

 "quills varied with white and black lines," and "wing-coverts white, 

 unspotted," do uot agree so well, but the diflerence is not great, and is 

 easily understood when one attends to the manner in which the descrij)- 

 tion has been made ; the inner webs of the first quills are variegated as 

 above described, and although the wing-coverts are not unspotted 



