682 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
brown ; a dusky loral band, and a whitish streak over the eye. 
Length, 5"; wing, 4”; tail, 1”. 
Fig. Dresser, B. Eur. viii, pl. 539. 
653. Trinca Barrpu, Coues. Baird’s Sandpiper. 
The late Mr. Andersson procured a single example of this 
American species at Walwich Bay on the 26th of October, 1863. 
The full particulars respecting this specimen will be found given by 
Mr. J. E. Harting in a note to Andersson’s “ Birds of Damara 
Land.” ‘The diagnostic characters given by Dr. Coues are summed 
up as follows, and we copy them here, although it is scarcely likely 
that a second specimen of Baird’s Sandpiper will be found in South 
Africa. 
Length about 7:25 in.; bill slender, entirely black ; feathers 
extending on the lower mandible much beyond those on the upper ; 
upper tail-coverts much lengthened, black; central tail-feathers 
projecting but little; the emargination of the tail slight. 
654. Trine@a suparcuata, Guldenst. Curlew Sandpiper. 
The Pigmy Curlew is abundant along the shores in the winter or 
non-breeding plumage, and we have shot some now and then, just 
beginning to assume that of the summer phase; but only a single 
specimen has ever occurred to us showing the full fine red tints of 
that state. This was brought alive to the South African Museum 
by a lad on the 26th April, 1868. He had captured it by hand. It 
lives in great flocks on Robben Island, and at the mouth of the 
Salt River. 
Dr. Bradshaw showed us a specimen killed by himself on the 
Orange River on the 3lst of August, 1881, which still retained 
remains of the summer plumage. “In Natal,” writes Mr, Ayres, 
“these birds are gregarious, frequenting the Bay in considerable 
flights, and feeding on the mud-banks when the tide recedes. He 
shot a specimen in the Transvaal on the 24th November on some 
mud-banks in a swamp near Potchefstroom, in company with several 
others of this species and of other Sandpipers, including T'ringa 
minuta.” ‘The Curlew Sandpiper,” writes Mr. Andersson, “is the 
commonest Tringa at Walwich Bay and all along the lagoons and 
shallows of the south-west coast, where it ranges southward to 
Table Bay. It congregates in flocks, often of many hundreds, 
