388 



Dixon, The Spoon-billed Sandpiper. 



rAuk 

 Loct. 



American bird on the basis of a "summer" specimen taken by 

 Captain Moore of the British Ship Plover, on Choris Peninsula, 

 Kotzebue Sound, Arctic Alaska, during the summer of 1849 

 (Coues, 1884, p. 78, footnote). This was the first and, for many 

 years, the only known example of the species in summer plumage, 

 and from 1849 until 1915 it was the only recorded specimen from 

 North America. Hence the position of this individual specimen 

 has been unique, and we are able to check up discrepancies in differ- 

 ent published accounts with the reasonable assurance that the 

 varying statements encountered all refer to the same bird. The 

 first record that the author has been able to find of this particular 

 specimen is in the ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society of London 

 for 1859 (p. 201) where it is mentioned as having been exhibited 

 by Mr. Sclater at a meeting of the Society. At that time, ten 

 years after its capture, the bird was supposed to have come from 

 the "Northeastern Coast of Asia." In 1903 this same specimen 

 seems to have afforded the only basis for Coues' statement (p. 813) 

 concerning the species : " breeding" " on the Arctic coast of Alaska." 

 The history of this specimen in literature is shown on the following 

 diagram (Fig. 1), illustrating the relation of all subsequent pub- 

 lished statements to the original record in 1859, and also how the 

 supposed locality of capture has shifted from Asia to North x\merica. 



Fig. 1. Diagram of records relative to the first known "summer" specimen of Spoon- 

 billed Sandpiper showing: (1) relation of records; (2) gradual shifting of the records of the 

 locality of this specimen from Asia to North America. 



1903. Coues, p. 813. "Breeding on the eastern Arctic coast of Siberia,, 

 and also on the Arctic coast of Alaska." 



