160 BULLETIN 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



lows it may easily pass unnoticed until it is approached too closely 

 when it flushes swiftly with a loud pees wees and flies rapidly away. 

 The solitary sandpiper is larger than the spotted sandpiper and 

 has longer legs. It is dusky black above, spotted very lightly with 

 white, with the outer tail feathers barred prominent^ with white. 

 Beneath it is white with fine dusky gray lines on the foreneck and 

 sides of the breast, and the axillars and under wing coverts grayish 

 black, barred with white. The wing measures from 121 to 134 mm., 

 females being usually larger than males. 



CATOPTKOPHORUS SEMIPALMATUS SEMIPALMATUS (Gmelin) 

 WILLET, CHORLO 



Scolopax semipalmata Gmelin, Syst. Nat., vol. 1, pt. 2, 1789, p. 659 (New 

 York). 



Totanus semipalmatus, Tippenhauek, Die Insel Haiti, 1882, p. 322 (listed). 



CatoptropJwrus s. semipalmatus, Beebe, Zool. Soc. Bull., vol. 30, 1927, p. 139; 

 Beneath Tropic Seas, 1928, pp. 67, 69, 219 (Source Matelas). 



Catoptrophorus semipalmatus semipalmatus, Bond, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila- 

 delphia, vol. 80, 192S, p. 520 (listed).— Danfoeth, Auk, 1929, p. 364 (Les. 

 Salines, specimen). 



Probably resident ; local. 



The only records of the willet for the Dominican Republic are 

 those of one taken on Saona Island, September 14, 1919, by W. L. 

 Abbott, and two males secured by Kaempfer, now in the Tring Mu- 

 seum, which Hartert informs us were taken at the mouth of the Yuna 

 River October 11, 1922, and near Sanchez November 25, 1921. The 

 Abbott specimen, of uncertain sex, has the following measurements : 

 wing 197.0, tail 70.2, culmen from base 57.5, tarsus 55.4 mm. It is 

 identified as the subspecies semipalmatus. Abbott saw several at 

 Baie des Moustiques in 1917, and Beebe recorded five at Source 

 Matelas January 13 and 23, 1927. 



In Haiti Wetmore found a dozen near Aquin on April 3, 1927, 

 scattered over the open mudflats near a salt water lagoon. He shot 

 one but was prevented from retrieving it by the depth of the soft 

 mud. The birds called noisily and flew about with display of the 

 prominent black and white wing markings. He recorded one at 

 Caracol on April 27, and on April 28 saw numbers near Gonai'ves in 

 passing low above the coastal lagoons in an airplane. The clear cut 

 wing markings made identification easy as the birds flew beneath the 

 plane. 



Danforth collected one of two seen at Les Salines July 30, 1927. 

 The species is one that inhabits open mudflats and is thus restricted 

 to the coastal plain. 



