384 SHORE BIRDS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN. 
tain. The pectoral sand piper Sept., 1865, Halifax, and after- 
wards at Digby. The buff breasted sand piper I note Provincial 
Museum, Halifax, and the purple sand piper at Halifax. The 
knot or ash coloured sand piper, Sept., 1880 and 1881, in winter 
plumage. The semi-palmated Snipe or Willet, Digby, June, 1877. 
Both species of the yellow shanks, the larger and the lesser, are 
both common in September. Of the tattlers, the solitary or 
green rump tattler is common; barn snipe as it is called from its 
solitary haunts about barn pools, and the spotted tattler, is com- 
mon everywhere. Of Bartram’s tattler, or the grass plover, I 
note one specimen, and that from Sable Island, 1868. This 
brings us to the Godwits, both species of which, Marbled and 
Hudsonian, I have noted, the Hudsonian shot, in August. The 
brown or red breasted snipe is the last autumn visitor I will 
mention as noted in September. 
I have never met with the Dunlin or Ox bird in Nova Scotia, 
nor do I mention the Phaloropes, though I have seen them and 
think we have two species, certainly the rose colored one, but 
am not able to identify them. Wilson’s snipe and the Wood- 
cock are common residents, breeding here, the latter plenty, 
though it requires a good dog, gun, and quick shot to find them. 
I have seen a bag of twelve or thirteen couple made by my son 
in a few hours, besides grouse and hares, when he combined all 
these attributes at one time. A wounded woodcock that I kept 
by me was lively at night, and always kept its tail spread and 
crested like a fan over its back. In this paper I have given only 
my own personal observations of what was seen in Nova Scotia, 
No doubt many species of North American birds do not pass our 
shores. In endeavouring to clear the vexed story of the peeps 
or sand pipers I have thought it best to deseribe the only three 
well marked species that I have noticed; and to say that how- 
ever numerous or varied other North American specics may be, I 
have not found them here. To attempt to class our species here 
with those of Wilson, Nuttall, or Richardson, is to immediately 
fall into a erowd of stints, pigmies, lesser pusilla, minor sand 
peeps, all of which seem to have the same measurement and col- 
ouring. Amongst these the semi-palmata seems to stand out boldly 
