SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 163 



irides almost black. The young bird is a darker brown, and 

 the sexes are alike, though the breasts of some males certainly 

 look darker in the field. Length, 8 ins. Wing, 4*25 ins. 

 Tarsus, o'8 in. 



Spotted Sandpiper. Tr'mga macularia Linn. 



Truth owes much to Mr. J. H. Gurney for investigating the 

 history of the Spotted Sandpiper. The result is astonishing ; 

 record after record was discredited, due to error in identifica- 

 tion or deliberate fraud. The bird nests in Canada and the 

 States, and winters in the West Indies and South America, and, 

 as Mr. Gurney points out, is as likely to wander as many other 

 waders which have certainly reached us from America, but 

 as it has been confused with so different a bird as the Green 

 Sandpiper, and in certain cases American skins have been 

 palmed off as British, every record is suspicious. Two of the 

 birds, provisionally accepted by Mr. Gurney and Seebohm, 

 though correctly identified, I have reason to doubt ; these are 

 the Lancashire specimens. Seven or eight are accepted as 

 genuine by the B.O.U. Committee. Seebohm, however, points 

 out that if any of the adult birds are genuine it is probable 

 that some reach us in immature dress and are unrecognised, 

 since the majority of American wanderers are immature. 



The bird is a little smaller than the Common Sandpiper, 

 which it closely resembles, except that in summer its back and 

 wings are more decidedly barred with brown, and its under 

 parts are spotted with black. These spots are less distinct in 

 winter, and are absent in the young bird, but the most constant 

 distinction is that the broad brown bar on the secondaries is 

 continuous in the Spotted Sandpiper, but interrupted in the 

 Common, which has the eighth and ninth feathers nearly white. 

 A photograph of the wing is shown in " British Birds " (Mag.), 

 vol. iii. p. yr]. The bill is greenish, yellower at the base. 



