KNOT. 



SCOLOPACID^.] 



TRINGA CANUTUS, Linn^us. 



The Knot is a common winter visitor to the British Islands. Authenticated 

 eggs of this bird do not appear to exist in any collections *, unless the egg f in the 

 British Museum can he considered authentic. 



Mr. Howard Saunders describes the geographical distribution of the Knot as 

 follows J : — " To Iceland and the south of Greenland the Knot is a visitor on the 

 way to its breeding-grounds, which, according to the earlier Arctic explorers, were 

 found on Melville Peninsula, and also — much further to the north-west — on 

 Melville Island, one of the North Georgian or Parry group, whence no identified 

 eggs, however, appear to have been brought back. In 1876 Col. Feilden, 

 naturalist to H.M.S. ' Alert,' searched in vain for them, but on July 30th a male 

 and three nestlings were obtained near a small lake on Grinnell Land in 

 lat. 82° 33' N., while Mr. Chichester Hart, naturalist to H.M.S. 'Discovery,' 

 captured a brood of four in lat. 81° 44' on the 11th, three more being taken next 

 day; a beautiful group of the old and young is in the British Museum. An 

 assertion in the ' Auk ' that the egg has been obtained on Lieut. Greely's 

 expedition, requires confirmation. § West of th6 Parry Islands the Knot can be 



* Mr. Walter Eaine describes and iigures (' Bird-Nesting in North-West Canada,' p. 188, pi. iii. 

 figs. 1 & 2) two eggs stated to be those of the Knot, and taken at Eaedodavmsi, Iceland, on June 20, 

 1889. It is not stated, however, that the parent-birds were either shot or identified. Eeputed eggs 

 of the Knot are also figured by Thienemann (' rortpflanzungsgeschichte der gesammten Vogel,' Taf. Ixi. 

 3 a, h, c, d) and by Baedeker (' Eier der europaeischen Voegel,' Taf. 71, Nr. 6), without any con- 

 firmatory evidence. 



t With reference to this specimen, Dr. E. Bowdler Sharpe says (' Handbook to the Birds of 

 Great Britain,' vol. iii. p. 235) : — " One egg is in the British Museum, to which it was presented by 

 the late Mr. Seebohm, who states that it was from a clutch of four sent with the parent bird from 

 Disco in Greenland to Mr. Versler in Copenhagen, who had received it from Mr. Bolbroe, the original 



captor It looks exactly like the kind of egg one might expect the Knot to lay. Axis, 



1-6 inches ; diam., I'l." 



t ' Manual of British Birds,' pp. 581, 582. 



§ [General Greely states, in his ' Three Tears of Arctic Service ' (vol. ii. pp. 377, 378), that an 

 egg ready to be laid was taken out of a Knot near Discovery Harbour on June 9th, 1883. He 



2 M 



