OP THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 231 



Family CHABADBIID^E. Genus TOTANUS. 



Subfamily TOTANIN^E. 



YELLOW=LEGGED SANDPIPER. 



TOTANUS FLAVIPES (Ginelin). 



Scolopax flavipes, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 659 (1788). 



Totanus flavipes (Gmel.), Yarrell, Brit. B., ed. 4, iii. p. 480 (1883); Seebohm, Hist. 

 Brit. B. iii. p. 136 (1885) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 250 (1894) ; 

 Seebohm, Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 139, pi. 44 (1896) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. 

 Brit. iii. p. 303 (1896) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 431 (1896). 



Geographical distribution. British: One doubtful and two well- 

 authenticated occurrences establish the claim of the Yellow-legged Sandpiper to 

 rank as "British." They are as follows: Nottinghamshire (one example), no 

 exact date ; Yorkshire (one very doubtful example), October, 1858 ; Cornwall 

 (one example), September, 1871. Foreign: Nearctic and Neotropical regions. It 

 breeds across the North American continent, from the Yukon Valley, in Alaska 

 in the west, to the Hudson Bay territory and Greenland in the east. Its 

 southern breeding range appears to extend to about lat. 44. It passes through 

 the United States, the Bahamas, West Indies, and Trinidad on migration, a few 

 remaining to winter in the Southern States, but the majority passing on to the 

 American portion of the Intertropical realm. We may, however, remark that 

 Mr. Ambrose A. Lane (Ibis 1897 p. 311) states that this species breeds in Northern 

 Chili (Tarapaca) about December ! There can be little doubt that this Sandpiper 

 has a northern and southern migration from an equatorial base and that it breeds 

 in the temperate portion of South America, from the Argentine to Patagonia. 



Allied forms. Totanus glareola, the Old World representative of the 

 Yellow-legged Sandpiper, a British species, and dealt with fully in the preceding 

 chapter. T. melanoleucus, an inhabitant of nearly the same range as the Yellow- 

 legged Sandpiper. Differs from both these allied forms in being larger (wing 8'0 

 to 7'3 inches, instead of (i'7 to 6'1 inches in T. flavipes, and 5'1 to 4'5 inches in 

 T. glareola). 



Habits. Like all its allies, the Yellow-legged Sandpiper is a migratory 

 bird. It arrives at its more southerly breeding grounds in North America in 

 May, but is nearly if not quite a month later in the extreme northern limits of 



