TBINGA CANUTUS 323 



TRINGA CANUTUS, Liunaeus. 

 KNOT. 



Tringa canutus, Lmn. Sijst. Nat. i, p. 251 (1766) ; Loche, Expl. Sci. 



Alg. Ois. ii, p. 306 (1867); Komuj, J.f. 0. 1888, p. 265; id. J.f. 0. 



1893, p. 92 ; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xxiv, p. 593. 

 Tringa cinerea, Malherbe, Fauna Oni. de I'Alg. p. 32 (1855). 



Description. — Adult, winter, from North Tunisia. 



Upper parts grey, the crown streaked with darlj brown, and the scapulars 

 and wing-coverts fringed with dark brown and white ; rump and upper tail- 

 coverta white, Ijarred with darli brown; tail grey, narrowly fringed with 

 white ; under parts white, the breast and sides slightly striped and barred 

 with dark grey. 



Iris brown ; bill and feet blackish. 



Total length 10 inches, wing 670, culinen 1-25, tarsus 1-25. 



The sexes are alike. 



In spring the upper plumage is rust-red and white, striped with black, 

 and the under parts pale chestnut. 



The Knot is far from common in Tunisia, and may indeed almost 

 be said to be rare in that country. Examples, however, are occa- 

 sionally to be met with in winter, and a few may even be found at 

 times in the Tunis market, together with other Sandpipers, which 

 have been shot by the Arabs on the shores of El Bahira. 



Loche states that the species occurs on passage in Algeria, and 

 that he obtained specimens, both in summer and winter plumage, 

 on the border of Lake Halloula. 



In Marocco it is, apparently, also to be found, though the only 

 notice we have of the occurrence of the species in that country is 

 Favier's statement (fide Colonel Irby) that it passes near Tangier in 

 June. Colonel Irby remarks that the Knot is somewhat irregular 

 in its occurrence in the vicinity of Gibraltar, the few he met with 

 having been observed in April and May. Lord Lilford, however, 

 found this species in countless myriads during the first fortnight of 

 May, 1872, on the great mud-flats near the mouth of the Guadal- 

 quivir. The birds killed on that occasion (and of which several are 

 preserved in the Lilford collection) were without exception, in full 

 summer dress, and were no doubt on their way to their breeding- 

 grounds in the far north. These are supposed to be chiefly in North 

 Greenland and Arctic America, but comparatively little is known at 



