BARTRAM'S SANDPIPER. 441 



sitting on a bean-stubble, by Mr. R. Barnard, and sent to 

 the late Hugh Reid of Doncaster for preservation on the 

 31st October, 1851 (Zool. pp. 3330, 3388, 4254). It 

 afterwards passed into the collection of Lord Willoughby de 

 Broke, at Compton Verney, near Stratford-on-Avon. The 

 next specimen, which is now in the collection of Mr. J. 

 H. Gurney, was shot on the 12tli December, 1855, in a 

 ploughed field between Cambridge and Newmarket, and an 

 illustration of the bird, with the following details of its 

 capture from the pen of the Rev. Frederick Tearle, of Trinity 

 Hall, Cambridge, appeared in ' The Illustrated News ' of 

 20th January, 1855 : — " Some farm labourers, who were 

 engaged in thrashing near the spot, observed a strange 

 bird flying round in large circles over the adjoining field, 

 and uttering a whistling cry at short intervals. It fre- 

 quently alighted, and ran along the ground like a Corncrake. 

 One of the men thought he could catch it with his hat, and 

 gave chase ; but the bird, as soon as he came near, rose, 

 and flew around, whistling as before. On seeing that it did 

 not fly away, the son of a gamekeeper, who lived close by, 

 went into his father's cottage for a gun, and came out and 

 shot it. He sent it to me a few days afterwards, calling it a 

 Whistling Plover." Another correspondent of the same 

 newspaper, under the initials N. S. R., stated that he had 

 shot a bird of this species on the 19th of January, 1855, at 

 Bigswear, in Gloucestershire, but the assertion must be 

 taken for what it is worth. The third authenticated example 

 was shot near Mullion in Cornwall, from a piece of pastui-e- 

 turnips, and brought into a game-shop on the 13th November, 

 1865, when Dr. Bullmore obtained and recorded it.* A 

 fourth, and perhaps the earliest British-killed specimen, 

 appears to have been unrecorded until recently (Zool. 1877, 

 p. 389), although shot at least thirty years previously on 

 the banks of the Parret in Somersetshire : it forms part 

 of the collection of Dr. Woodforde of Taunton. 



A fifth, recorded by Mr. George Bolam, who acquired it, 



* 'Zoologist,' 1866, p. 37, and 'Cornish Fauna,' p. 31; sec also Rodd's 

 ' B. of Cornwall,' pp. 96-100, for an elaborate description. 



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