COMMON SANDPIPER. 139 
Genus ACTITIS. 
Actitis Illiger, Prodr. Mamm. et Av., p. 263, (pref. April) 1811. Type (by subsequent 
designation, Reichenbach, Nat. Syst. Vogel, p. xtv., 1852, 1853 ?): Tringa hypoleucos Linné. 
Tringoides Bonaparte, Ann. Lyceum Nat. Hist. New York, Vol. II., p. 326, “ 1828” 
[November 1827.] Type (by subsequent designation, Richmond (3), p. 627, Aug. 16th = 
25th, 1917): Tringa macularia ‘* Wils.”’ 
Guinetta Gray, List Genera Birds, Ist ed., p. 68, April 1840: Type (by original designation) : 
Tringa hypoleucos Linné. 
Smallest Totanine Waders with short straight bills, long wings, long tail, short 
legs, and long toes. The culmen is short, straight, and slender with the groove in 
the upper mandible extending three parts its length ; the culmen is scarcely longer 
than the metatarsus, which is about equal to the middle toe and claw ; the inter- 
ramal space is feathered. 
The long wings have the first primary longest. The tail is long, rounded and 
about half the length of the wing or twice the length of the culmen. The metatarsus 
is regularly scutellate in front and behind and about equal to the middle toe and 
claw in length ; the exposed portion of the tibia is less than half the length of the 
metatarsus. 
The toes are long and a basal web connects the outer and middle, an indistinct 
web joining the middle and inner toe. Long hind-toe present. 
96. Actitis hypoleucus.—COMMON SANDPIPER. 
Gould, Vol. VI., pl. 35 (pt. xxx11.), Sept. Ist, 1848. Mathews, Vol. III., pt. 3, pl. 153, Aug 
18th, 1913. 
Tringa hypoleucos Linné, Syst. Nat., 10th ed., p. 149, Jan. Ist, 1758: Sweden. 
Eeynanealoides Vroeg (ex Pallas MS.), Catal. d’Ois., Adumb., p. 7, ante Sept. 22nd, 1764: 
olland. 
Tringa aurita Latham, Index Ornith. Suppl., p. txvr., 1801, after May: New South Wales, 
based on Watling drawing No. 244. 
Totanus guinetta Forster, Synopt. Cat. Brit. Birds, p. 24, Dec. 1817. New name for Tringa 
hypoleucos Linné. 
Trynga leucoptera Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat., Vol. II., p. 196, 1827: Siberia. 
Actitis cinclus Brehm, Naturg. Végel Deutschl., p. 648 (pref. July) 1831: Germany. 
Actitis stagnatilis Brehm, %b., p. 649: Germany. 
Actitis empusa Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1847, p. 222, March 29th, 1848: Port 
Essington, Northern Territory. 
Actitis megarhynchos Brehm, Vollstiind. Vogelfang, p. 314, 1855, pref. Nov. 8th, 1854: “ Im 
Morgenlande, selten im Sudeuropa.”’ 
Acitis cinclus major and minor A. E. Brehm, Verz. Samml., p. 13, 1866. Nom. nud. 
DisTRIBUTION.—Winter visitor to Australia, breeding in the northern hemisphere. 
Adult male in summer-plumage——General colour above olive-brown, including 
the head, back, wings, and tail; the feathers of the head, hind-neck, and mantle 
having narrow dark shaft-lines, while those of the back and wings have dark cross- 
bars, some of the lateral upper tail-coverts are edged with white ; the small marginal 
coverts round the bend of the wing as also the outer edge of the bastard-wing and 
outer primary-coverts white; bastard-wing, primary-coverts, and primary-quills 
pale brown, the latter white on the middle inner webs, except the outer one, the inner 
ones edged with white at the tips ; secondaries white at the base and brown at the 
tips, the middle ones edged with white at the tips, some of the inner quills almost 
entirely white, the innermost olive-brown barred with darker brown ; middle tail- 
feathers like the back, the outer feathers paler, notched and tipped with white also 
mottled with buffy-white ; a white spot in front of the eye and a dark line through 
the latter ; sides of face and ear-coverts pale brown, intermixed with white, giving 
a streaked appearance ; throat, abdomen, under tail-coverts white, like the axillaries 
and under wing-coverts ; fore-neck and breast white with narrow brown shaft-lines 
