172 British Birds ^ 



PECTORAL SANDPIPER— (r^/;/^^ maculaia; 

 formerl}^, T. pectoralis). 



Not so rare as the last. 



BONAPARTE'S SANDPIPER— (rr/«f^^ fuscicollis ; 

 formerly, T. ScJiinzii). 



Very rarely met with. 



DUNLIN — [Tringa Alpina ; formerly, T. variabilis^ 



Dunlin Sandpiper, Purre, Churr, Stint, Oxbird, Sea 

 Snipe, Least Snipe, Sea Lark. — Perhaps the very 

 conmionest and best known, as well as incom])arably 

 the most abundant of all our small shore birds, and 

 yet the one about which heaps of scientific mistakes 

 have been made. The male has a conspicuous wedding- 

 dress, which he dul}" puts on in the spring, and once 

 it was on he was christened Tringa Alpina, the Dunlin. 

 Then in the autumn and winter, having divested him- 

 self alike of his summer dress and all property or 

 concern in wife and children, he was named anew 

 Tringa Cincliis, the Purre. On its being satisfactorily 

 ascertained that the onl}^ real difference between 

 Dunlin and Purre was that of a few feathers, and 

 those chiefly on the breast, and dependent simply on 

 season, the new name at the head of this notice was 

 suggested and willingly adopted as altogether a fit 

 one. The Dunlin, always called Oxbird where my 

 boyhood was spent, and often seen there in flocks of 

 not simply hundreds, but thousands, and many 

 thousands, in the autumn and winter, goes to the far 

 north to breed, though some of their hosts stay in the 



