326 Letters, Announcements, tyc. 



ticula (L.), Charadrius placidus, G. R. Gray, B. M. Cat. 

 Hodgson's -Coll. 2nd ed. p. 70. 



"Two examples of what I consider to be the common 

 British Ringed Plover are among the skins sent by Mr. Hodg- 

 son to the British Museum." 



Now the two examples above referred to, which Mr. Blyth 

 thought were C. hiaticula, and which Mr. Gray had named pla- 

 cidm*, are undoubtedly^, hartingi, Swinhoe,.J5. tenuirostris, 

 Hume, the very bird now under consideration ! Of this I have 

 satisfied myself by a recent examination of the specimens in 

 the British Museum. How Mr. Blyth could have overlooked 

 the very marked specific characters of this bird, I know not ; 

 but possibly there was no specimen of Ch. hiaticula close at 

 hand for comparison. 



Mr. Gray thus described the species : — 



" Charadrius placidus. 



"Greyish fuscous ; quills fuscous black ; front throat, collar 

 round the neck, beneath the body, and margins of wing-coverts 

 white ; tail greyish fuscous, the outer feathers marked near 

 the tips with black, and tipped with white ; the outer web of 

 outer feather also white ; lore and band across the breast a 

 mixture of black and greyish fuscous. Bill black ; feet pale. 



" Length 8" 9'", wings 5" 8'", tarsi 1" 3'", bill from gape 10"'." 



There is a coloured drawing of this bird, of the natural size, 

 in Mr. Hodgson's collection of drawings in the British Mu- 

 seum ; and on the same plate is a sketch in pencil of the wing, 

 tibia, tarsus, and foot, and the stomach, with the name " can- 

 tiana ? " written by Mr. Hodgson also in pencil. 



It follows, then, that for this well-marked species Mr. Gray's 

 is the oldest name, and must have priority, while Mr. Swin- 

 hoe's (I am sorry to say) will sink into a synonym. This 

 must also be the fate of Mr. Hume's tenuirostris, it having 

 been bestowed two years after Mr. Swinhoe's hartingi. 



Should Pere David's bird prove, as I suspect, to belong to 

 the same species, his name for it (longipes), bestowed in 1867, 

 must also give way. Not only is his description insufficient 



* Cat. Hodgson's Coll. 2nd ed. p. 70 (1863); ef. also 'Handlist,' iii. 

 p. 15, No. 10001 (1871 ). 



