122 BRITISH BIRDS. 



TOTANUS MACULARIUS. 

 SPOTTED SANDPIPER. 



(Plate 30.) 



Tringa turdus aquaticus, Bnss. Orn. v. p. 255 (1760). 



Tiinga raacularia, Linn. Syst. Nat i. p. 249 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum— 



Wilso7i, {Audiibou), {Baird, Breicer, 4* liidg^varj), {Coues), &c. 

 Totauus macularius {Linn.), Temm. Man. d'Orn. p. 422 (1815). 

 Actitis macularius {Linn.), Boie, Isis, 1826, p. 979. 

 Tringoidos macularia {Linn.), Graij, Gen. B. in. p. 574 (1846). 

 Tringites macularius {Linn.), Scl. Sf Salv. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1873, p. 309. 

 Triugoides hypoleucos, var. macularius {Linn.), Ridgio. Ann. Lye. N.Y.x. 1874, p. 384. 



In Harting's 'Handbook of British Birds ^ no fewer than nineteen 

 alleged occurrences of the Spotted Sandpiper in our islands arc recorded. 

 Gurney, in his ' Rambles of a Naturalist,' criticizes these seriatim, and 

 satisfactorily proves that many of them are cases of mistaken identity, 

 Avhilst others, though correctly identified, are instances — alas, too common 

 — of foreign skins having been sold as British. Gurney reduced the 

 nineteen down to seven possible occurrences ; Saunders regards only four 

 as tolerably satisfactory; whilst the 'Ibis List' dismisses the Spotted 

 Sandpiper from the roll of British birds with the curt observation — " Of 

 doubtful occurrence in the United Kingdom ! " I venture to think that 

 if any of those ornithologists had been personally acquainted with the 

 Spotted Sandpiper, and with the habits of migratory birds in general, 

 they Avould have come to a very different conclusion. I have both seen and 

 shot this bird during its autumn migrations on the banks of rivers and on 

 the shores of lakes both in Canada and in the United States, in both which 

 countries it is as abundant as the Common Sandpiper is in England, but I 

 never had the good fortune to meet with a bird having a spotted breast. I 

 have examined many rare migrants both in this country and in Heligoland ; 

 and I venture to say that for one adult bird which wanders out of its usual 

 line of migration, ten young birds in first plumage (or_, in the case of species 

 which moult that plumage before they migrate, birds of the year) are found 

 to do so. Consequently if we accept the numbers admitted by Mr. Howard 

 Saunders as the lowest estimate deserving of serious consideration, it seems 

 very probable that if four adult Spotted Sandpipers have visited our shores, 

 thirty or forty young in first plumage may have strayed as far as tiie British 

 Islands. Saunders remarks that " birds of the year are far less spotted on 

 the underparts than the adults " — a statement which is verbally accurate, 

 inasmuch as, so far as I know, they are always absolutely destitute of spots 

 on the underparts, and would naturally escape detection, except in the hands 



