13G BEITISH BIRDS. 



TOTANUS FLAVIPES. 

 YELLOW-LEGGED SANDPIPER. 



(Plate 32.) 



Scolopax flavipes, Omel Syst. Nat. i. p. 059 (1788); et auctorum pliirimoruin— 

 Wilson, {Swainson ^- Richardson), (Audubon), (Cones), (Baird, Brewer, ^- Bidr/- 

 way), &c. 



Totanus uatator, j 



Totanus fuscocapillus, [ Vieill N. Diet. (THist. Nat. vi. pp. 400, 409, 410 (1810). 



Totanus flavipes (Gmel), ) 



Gambetta flavipes (Gmel), Bonap. Compt. Rend. p. 597 (1850). 



Totanus leucopyga, Illiger,Jide Giebel, Thes. Orn. iii. p. 645 (1877). 



The Yellow-legged Sandpiper, Yellowshank, or Yellow-legs, as it is 

 variously called, is an American bird which is said to have occurred three 

 times iu the British Islands. It was figured and described by Yarrell 

 (Hist. British Birds, 3rd ed. iii. p. 637) from an example in the collection 

 of Sir William Milner, to whom it had been sold by Reid, the birdstufter 

 in Doncaster, who supposed it to be a Wood-Sandpiper, and stated that it 

 was killed at Misson, about two and a half miles north-east of Bawtry, on 

 the borders of Lincolnshire, by one of a small party of men residing at 

 Misson, who got their living by shooting wildfowl during the season, which 

 they sent to Doncaster (Milner, ' Zoologist,' 1858, p. 5958) . 



The second record of the occurrence of this species in the British Islands 

 is still less satisfactory, resting solely on the authority of a York birdstufter 

 (Graham, 'Naturalist,' 1858, p. 291), who merely stated that a fine female 

 of the Yellowshank, shot near Tadcaster by a Mr. N. B. Thompson, was 

 then (17tli of Oct. 1858) in his shop in the flesh waiting to be skinned. 



The thii'd record, however (Rodd, ' Zoologist,' 1871, p. 2807), can scarcely 

 be disputed. This example, an adult male, of which a full description is 

 given, was shot on the 12th of Sept. 1871, ''by Mr. EdAvard Vingoe, from 

 the margin of a pool in a salt-marsh near Marazion, about two miles from 

 Penzance, a few yards from the sea." 



The Yellow-legged Sandpiper is the American representative of the Wood- 

 Sandpiper^. It was originally described by Pennant, in his 'Arctic Zoology,' 



• It is a veiy thankless office to point out the numerous blunders of previous writers ; 

 but unless they are corrected, the student must waste much valuable time in trying to 

 reconcile the discrepancies wliich he is sure to discover, if he be at all interested in his 

 subject. Baird, Brewer, and lUdgway are wrong- in saying that " the European analogue 

 of T. flavipes w the T. staynatilis." The latter bird is nearest allied to the Kedshank. I 

 cannot believe that a slight difference in the length of the tarsus can override similarity of 

 colour similaritv of pattern of colom-, and similarity of seasonal changes of colour, and 



