YELLOWSHANK. 



ScOLOPACIDiE.] 



TOTANUS FLAVIPES (J. F. Gmelin). 



Explanation of Plate. 



figure 1. Lower Anderson River, July 1865. No. 11391. 

 „ 2. Anderson River, June 20, 1862. No. 7661. 

 „ 3. Rendezvous Lake, June 20 (1863?). No. 11387. 

 „ 4. Ditto. Ditto. 



„ 5. Ditto. June 25 (1865?). No. 11388. 



„ 6. Ditto. Ditto. 



British N. America ; 

 R. MacFarlane coll. 

 U.S. National Museum 

 Collection. 



There are only two authentic records of the occurrence of this American 

 species in the British Islands, one in Nottinghamshire and the other in Cornwall. 



Mr. Howard Sauxders writes * : — " As a straggler the Yellowshank has occurred 

 in Greenland ; but its breeding-grounds are in North America from Hudson Bay 

 to Alaska, extending as far south as Lake Superior, and perhaps to the vicinity 

 of Chicago, where Mr. Nelson found the young barely able to fly on July 1st, 

 1874. On passage this species is generally distributed throughout the greater 

 part of the United States, and is abundant along the valley of the Mississipi, 

 though of comparatively rare occurrence to the west of the Rocky Mountains. It 

 visits the Bermudas, Bahamas, and West Indies generally, as well as the mainland 

 of tropical America, wintering as far south as the Chupat valley in Patagonia — 

 where Durnford found it common during November — and also in Chili." 



The late Dr. T. M. Brewer gives the following particulars respecting the 

 breeding habits of the Yellowshank f : — " Mr. Kennicott, who found it breeding 

 near Fort Resolution, states that it arrives there in the spring among the first 

 birds. He describes its nest as of the simplest kind, it being merely a depression 

 without any lining, at the foot of a small bush, in rather open ground, a rod from 

 the edge of a marsh. Another nest was in an open place among sparse, low 

 bushes — a simple depression, but lined with a few leaves and sticks. 



* ' Manual of British Birds,' pp. 599, 600, 



t ' Water Birds of North America,' vol. i. p. 277. 



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