208 SCOLOPACID^E : SNIPE, ETC. 



Again (in vol. vi, p. 307), Mr. Brewster says: 'The 

 Stilt Sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus), which I see 

 was recorded in a recent number of the Naturalist as 

 new to our Fauna, I consider by no means rare in 

 its migrations. Indeed, I have seen as many as six or 

 seven sent into Boston market at one time, from Cape 

 Cod, and, in the course of a few weeks' shooting in 

 August, at Rye Beach, N. H. (just north of our state 

 limits), I secured no less than ten specimens.' Not only 

 has he since shot it, but he, as well as myself and 

 others, find it frequently in the Boston markets " (Bull. 

 Nutt. Club, ii, 1877, p. 17). But Dr. Brewer is still 

 dissatisfied ; for he says : ' Having exhausted the all too 

 insufficient limits to which I am restricted, I am com- 

 pelled to omit nearly all that I have written in reference 

 to Micropalama himantopus. I will only state that in 

 characterizing it as ' migratory, Mass.,' I should have 

 added ' N. H.,' in which it has been taken, twelve miles 

 from our boundary line. Though invited to do so, 

 your correspondent [Mr. Purdie] is unable to give any 

 data to show that it is migratory along the entire New 

 England coast. It has not been found in any part of 

 that coast from St. Andrews to Kittery, or from 

 Buzzard's Bay to East River, and the sweeping state- 

 ment of your correspondent still remains an entirely un- 

 supported assumption" (Bull. Nutt. Club, ii, 1877, 

 p. 48). 



Very soon, however, Mr. N. C. Brown comes to the 

 front with the following paragraph : " Mr. H. A. Purdie, 

 in his review of a recent ' Catalogue of the Birds of 

 New England,' stated (this Bulletin, vol. i, p. 73) that 

 Micropalama himantopus is migratory along the whole 

 New England coast. This elicited the rather sweeping 



