PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 69 
would come nearer, slipping between the stems and branches nearest 
to the ground, uttering a very low, thrush-like tak; tak; tak; tak, and 
with the tail straight upright, very much like a long-tailed Troglodytes 
both in colorand conduct. Andif I kept absolutely quiet he sometimes 
would proceed close to my feet, looking curiously at me with his pretty 
dark eyes. But before the challenge of a neighbor had attracted his 
attention and provoked his reply, which he usually began with a short 
trill, it would not have been advisable to move a muscle. 
Then comes the time to lift your gun very slowly, stopping as often 
as he suspiciously stops his song, until the “crack” puts an end to it 
forever, and you hold in your hand a crushed specimen, unfit for prepa- 
ration, when you have to shoot from too short a distance, or return 
without anything, while, after a longer shot, you cannot find the plain- 
looking little bird amidst the immense vegetation in the dim light of 
the vanishing day and tortured by the intolerable mosquitos. You will 
understand from your own rich experience how much pleasure it gave 
me when I, at last, obtained a tolerably good specimen. Should it prove 
to be a valid species, I would be obliged if the name of its first discov- 
erer, Dybowski, be affixed to it. 
The family of sand-pipers is very well represented here on the island, 
and my collection therefore contains not less than nineteen spccies, 
or nearer one-third than one-fourth of the total number of species col- 
lected, a number liable to-be not inconsiderably increased before the 
list embraces all the species occurring here as residents or visitors. I 
must confess that there are several species among my birds which I 
have not been able to identify, although I have no hope that all these 
will prove to benew. Thus the most common limicoline bird here is an 
Arquatella (Nos. 1031, 1039, 1044, 1048, 1085, 1107, 1108, 1262, 1344, 1345, 
1468, ete.), about which I feel quite sure that it is a very well known 
species, but as to these birds it is more difficult to determine the species 
from memory alone than in almost any other group that I know of. 
But there are in my collection two species, the common forms of which 
I have been well acquainted with, showing some differences from these, 
if I am not quite mistaken. The one is the snipe, which, having only 
fourteen tail-feathers, comes nearer to the European Gallinago grallinaria 
(Miill.) than to the American G. wilsonti (Temm.). But I do not think 
that the former has the crissum and the under tail-coverts so dark 
brownish as my specimens, nor is the pattern of their greater wing- 
coverts quite identical. Snipe-hunting without a dog is exceedingly 
difficult here. For this reason I have at present only five specimens to 
send of this bird, which, in suitable localities, is by no means uncommon. 
The other one is a form of Pelidna alpina, which seems remarkable 
for its pure colors and the absence of any dark spot on the lores. I 
cannot unite it with P. chinensis Swinh., which has been identified 
by Taczanowski with P. schinzii (Brm.), and consequently must be much 
smaller than my birds. 
