CHARADRIID^. 



58r 



"*^®' 



^ 





»- — ^■^*-^/\\ 



BONAPARTE'S SANDPIPER. 



Tringa fuscicollis, Vieillot. 



This American species resembles a Dunlin in winter-plumage, but 

 may always be distinguished by its smaller size, shorter bill and 

 white upper tail-coverts. The first British example on record was 

 shot prior to 1839, in Shropshire ; while subsequently three have 

 been obtained in Cornwall, two in the Scilly Islands, four at Instow 

 in North Devon, two in Sussex, and one at Kingsbury Reservoir in 

 Middlesex. There is a specimen in the Belfast Museum, believed 

 to have been killed near that city prior to April 15th 1836. 



On the Continent of Europe this Sandpiper has not yet been 

 observed, for the T. scJiinzi of Brehm and some other ornithologists 

 is a small form of the Dunlin ; though our bird is the T. schhizi 

 of Bonaparte, and under the name of Schinz's Sandpiper was 

 figured and described in the ist, 2nd and 3rd Editions of ' Yarrell.' 

 On June 28th 1897, a solitary female of this species was shot near 

 Cape Flora, in the south of Franz Josef Land (Ibis 1898, p. 259) : 

 a very remarkable occurrence, for the bird has not yet been 

 identified in any part of Siberia. Even in Alaska it is rare, only 

 two specimens having been obtained by Mr. Murdoch at Point 

 Barrow ; but it is generally distributed in Arctic America from the 

 Mackenzie valley (where it breeds abundantly) eastward ; while it 

 occurs in Greenland in autumn, and is said to have visited Iceland. 

 On migration it is common in the Mississippi valley, and along the 

 whole Atlantic coast to Florida ; ranging southward to the West 



