236 THE GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family CHAKADKIHXE. Genus TOTANUS. 



Subfamily TOTANIN&. 



DUSKY REDSHANK. 



TOTANUS FUSCUS (Linnaus). 



Scolopax fusca, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 243 (1766). 



Totanus fuscus (Linn.), Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 328 (1852) ; Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 165, 



pis. 568, 569 (1875); Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 4, iii. p. 474 (1883); Seebohm, Hist. 



Brit. B. iii. p. 145 (1885) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 252 (1894) ; 



Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 295 (1896) ; Seebohm, Col. Pig. Eggs Brit. B. 



p. 141, pi. 44 (1896) ; Sharpe, Gat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 409 (1896) ; Lilford, Col. 



Fig. Brit. B. pt. xxxiv. (1897). 



Geographical distribution. British : The Dusky Eedshank is a rare 

 straggler on spring and autumn migration, most frequently the latter, to the east 

 coasts of England, south of the Humber. It becomes much rarer in the south, 

 and of still less frequency in the west. It has occurred inland as far as Notts, as 

 well as several times on the east coast of Scotland, but not in the west if we 

 except Mr. Services' record from the Scotch shores of the Solway, or in the 

 Hebrides, although it has been recorded from the Orkneys. Several examples 

 have been killed in Ireland, one near Belfast and others in the Moy estuary, during 

 autumn and winter, and several on the coast of Co. Dublin. Foreign : Northern 

 Palaearctic region ; Ethiopian and Oriental regions in winter. It breeds on the 

 tundras of Europe and Asia, above the limit of forest growth, but nowhere 

 apparently south of the Arctic circle (unless it be at high elevations on the 

 mountains of Turkestan, where similar climatic conditions prevail), from Lapland 

 in the west to the Tchuski Land in the east. It passes the European and Pacific 

 coasts, including Japan, as well as across country on migration, and winters in 

 the basin of the Mediterranean, in Africa north of the equator (a few wandering 

 abnormally as far south as the Cape Colony*), in India, Burmah, and China. It 

 has also been said to wander to Ceylon and to the Aleutian Islands, and occasionally 

 winters in such temperate latitudes as Holland. 



Allied forms Perhaps most nearly allied to Totanus glottis and T. calidris, 

 both of which are well-known British species. 



* A single example was obtained by Layard in the Cape Colony. 



