236 OCCURRENCE OF EUROPEAN BIRDS IN N. S. PIERS. 



it must be slightly open to question in the minds of many 

 ornithologists. 



RUFF. Machetes pugnax (Linn.). A. O. U. No. 260. 

 On 27th May, 1892, a young ruffless male of this species 

 was shot at Cole Harbour, near Halifax, N. S., and was 

 mounted by T. J. Egan. It was identified by the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, Washington, as above-mentioned, al- 

 though some United States ornithologists considered it 

 differed slightly in some points from the European bird, but 

 these, I believe, were insufficient to make any real doubt as 

 to the determination, and the record must be taken as correct.* 

 (See fuller account in Piers's " Notes on N. S. Zoology, 

 No. 3," Trans. N. S. Inst. Sc., viii, 1894, p. 402). It is the 

 only occurrence of the species in Nova Scotia. It has oc- 

 curred as a straggler on the Bay of Fundy coast of New 

 Brunswick (vide M. Chamberlain), and one was killed on 

 Toronto Island, Ontario, in the spring of 1882 (Mcllwraith, 

 Birds of Ontario, 1894, p. 154). 



The Ruff is an Old World species, breeding from the Arctic 

 coast south to Great Britain, Holland, Russia and Siberia; 

 and winters throughout Africa, India, and Burma. It strays 

 in spring and fall to the Western Hemisphere from Ontario 

 and Greenland south to Indiana, North Carolina, Barbados, 

 and northern South America, there being some fourteen 

 records for the Atlantic coast. American records are given 

 by T. S. Palmer, in The Auk, xxiii, 1906, p. 98. 



WHIMBREL. Numenius^phxpus (Linn.). A. O. U. No. 267. 



This Old World species has once been recorded as taken 



about 170 miles to the eastward of the Nova Scotian coast. 



On 23rd May, 1906, a female Whimbrel came aboard the 



steamship "Bostonian" when she was westward-bound and 



*The original specimen, I think, is now in the collection of William Brewstcr, of Cambridge, 

 Mass., or of Mr. Boardmnn, and if not, must have been lost in the fire which destroyed 

 T. J. Egan's collection in September, 1904. 



