FAMILY SCOLOPACIDAE 415 



Jagua on March 16. My latest record for the season is for March 27 

 at Laguna de Agua, near El Volcan. 



Capella Frenzel, 1801, to replace Gallinago Koch, 1816, as the valid 

 name for the snipes follows the Check-list of North American Birds 

 in its fourth edition published in 1931 (continued in the fifth edition 

 of 1957), volume 2 of Peters's Check-Hst of the Birds of the World 

 of 1934, and other important writings that have appeared in recent 

 years. In 1956 the International Commission of Zoological Nomen- 

 clature in its Direction 39 ordered that "GaUinago Brisson, 1760" 

 be placed on the accepted list of generic names. Two years later 

 (Ibis, 1958, pp. 125-127) I ventured to point out that Gallinago 

 Brisson did not exist as a generic term, since it is merely the name 

 that Brisson gave for the second species in his genus Scolopax, viz, 

 Scolopax Gallinago. Obviously it has no validity in the generic sense. 

 While Dr. Ernst Mayr recently (Ibis, 1963, pp. 402-403) has argued 

 that Capella has no nomenclatural standing, this is not clear in spite 

 of his argument. It seems desirable to use it here in conformity with 

 current New World practice pending further investigation. 



CALIDRIS CANUTUS RUFA (Wilson): Knot; Playero Gordo 



Tringa rufa Wilson, Amer. Orn., vol. 7, 1813, p. 43, pi, 57, fig. 5. (New 

 Jersey.) 



A short-legged, plump-bodied sandpiper, of medium size, with 

 rather heavy bill. 



Description. — Length, 220 to 245 mm. Breeding plumage, narrowly 

 streaked on head and hindneck with black and gray ; back mottled 

 heavily with black, white, and cinnamon-buff ; rump pale gray barred 

 with black ; wing coverts brownish gray, with black shaft lines and 

 narrow white edgings ; greater coverts tipped with white to produce 

 a wing bar ; flight feathers black on outer web and tip, dark brownish 

 gray on inner web, with ivory-white shafts ; tail brownish gray tipped 

 very narrowly with white ; line over eye, side of head, breast, sides, 

 upper abdomen, and under tail coverts cinnamon-buff; lower abdo- 

 men and under wing coverts white; axillars white, barred with 

 brownish gray. Females are like the males, or may be paler cinnamon 

 on the lower surface. 



Winter plumage, crown feathers sooty black centrally, edged widely 

 with dull gray to produce a streaked appearance ; hindneck, back, and 

 wings brownish gray, with the feathers margined narrowly with 

 dusky and tipped with grayish white to produce a scalloped appear- 

 ance; rump white barred with black; under surface white, with the 



