OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 277 



Family CHAEADEIIDyB. Genus TRINGITES. 



Subfamily 



BUFF=BREASTED SANDPIPER. 



TEINGITES RUFESCENS (Vieillot). 

 PLATE XXVII. 



Tringa rufescens, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxxiv. p. 470 (1819) ; Macgill. Brit. 



B. iv. p. 194 (1852) ; Lilford, Col. Pig. Brit. B. pt. xix. (1891) ; Dixon, Nests and 



Eggs Non-indig Brit. B. p. 276 (1894). 

 Tringites rufescens (Vieill.), Dresser, B Eur. viii. p. Ill pi. 561 (1876); Yarrell, Brit. 



B. ed. 4, iii. p. 435 (1883). 

 Tryngites rufescens (Vieill ), Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 226 (1885) ; Seebohm, 



Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 151, pi. 43 (1896). 

 Tringites sub-ruficollis (Vieill.); Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 264 (1896); 



Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 521 (1896). 



Geographical distribution. British: The Buff-breasted Sandpiper 

 is a rare straggler to the British Islands, chiefly on autumn migration, as is 

 usually the case with abnormal migrants from the New World . The claim of 

 this species to rank as " British " rests on the following recorded occurrences : 

 England: Cambridgeshire (one example), Norfolk (four examples), Sussex (one 

 example), Cornwall and Scilly Isles (four examples), Lundy Isle (one example), 

 Lancashire (one example), May, 1829; Cumberland (one example). Scotland: 

 Caithness (one very doubtful example). Ireland : Co. Dublin (one example), 

 Antrim (two examples). All have occurred in autumn with the exception of the 

 Lancashire example, the date of which is open to some doubt. Foreign : 

 Northern Nearctic region, and probably extreme north-east of Palsearctic region ; 

 Northern Neotropical region in winter. It breeds in the Arctic regions of 

 America, from Alaska probably to Baffin Bay, although it is unrecorded from 

 Greenland. Westwards it appears to range to the Siberian coasts of Behring 

 Strait, and has been obtained on the southern shore of the Okhotsk Sea. It passes 

 the United States and the Bermudas (abnormally) on migration, and winters in 

 Mexico, the West Indies, and the northern portion of South America. A single 

 example has been obtained on Heligoland in May, a date, by the way, which 

 tends to confirm that of the Lancashire example, whilst it has been recorded from 

 Japan. 



Allied forms. None of sufficient propinquity to require notice. 



Habits The Buff-breasted Sandpiper is a Sandpiper that eschews the 

 sands. It is not a coast bird, and prefers the prairies to the mud-flats, and the 



