CHARADRIID.t. 



6l 



THE YELLOWSHANK. 

 ToTANUS FLAViPES (J. F. Gmelin). 



This is another of those American species which occasionally find 

 their way to. this side of the Atlantic. The first British-killed 

 example on record was obtained at Misson in Nottinghamshire, by 

 some wild-fowlers who used to send their birds to Doncaster, and 

 thus reached Hugh Reid, the well-known taxidermist. It was next 

 sold to Sir W. ]M. E. Milner, who brought it to London in the 

 spring of 1855, to be used by Yarrell in his ' History of British 

 Birds,' and it forms the subject of the present illustration ; it is now 

 in the Leeds Museum. A second genuine specimen was shot by 

 E. Vingoe on September 12th 1871, on a salt-marsh near Marazion 

 in Cornwall, as stated by Rodd (Zool. s.s. p. 2807) with ample 

 diagnosis and details. 



As a straggler the Yellowshank has occurred in South Greenland ; 

 but its breeding-grounds are in North America from Hudson Bay to 

 Alaska, extending as far south as Lake Superior, and perhaps to the 

 vicinity of Chicago, where Mr. Nelson found the young barely able 

 to fly on July ist 1874. On passage this species is generally distri- 

 buted throughout the greater part of the United States, and is abun- 

 dant along the valley of the Mississippi, though of comparatively rare 



