SANDERLING. 119 



as if purposely to puzzle an ornithologist and confound 

 all his theories,, a female shot on the 2nd of June has 

 scarcely any red margins to the feathers on the upper 

 surface of the body, and the chin, throat, and neck 

 are almost as little tinged with red as in those last 

 described. The females as a rule are certainly less rich 

 in colour than the males, there being more grey mixed 

 with the red and black on the upper parts, even 

 late in the season, and their throats, however ruddy, 

 show a white ground; whilst in fine adult males the 

 dark spots on the throat may be almost said to rest on 

 a red ground, so evenly is that colour distributed ; still I 

 cannot agree with General Sabine when he says, in the 

 appendix to Sir Edward Parry's first Arctic Voyage, 

 that the chin, throat, and fore part of the neck in the 

 female sanderling may be described " as white, with a 

 very slight sprinkling of dark spots, and scarcely any 

 appearance of red," as I have dissected one or two 

 females with so much red on those parts that I was 

 quite unable otherwise to determine the sex. The 

 plumage of six specimens killed on the 8th of June 

 (four males and two females), and one female shot on the 

 2nd, may be thus described in general terms : In three 

 of the males, the feathers of the upper portions of the 

 plumage are pure red and black, in the fourth male red 

 and black mixed with grey as in females.* Their throats 

 all more or less ruddy, but none of them equal in depth 

 of colouring to the old male shot on the 26th of May. 



* I was much struck on one or two occasions with the 

 wonderful similarity in colouring between the plumage of these 

 birds and the shingle of the beach, which, consisting of minute 

 fragments of flint and pebbles, mixed with the debris of shells, was 

 as prettily varied with red, white, and black as the backs of the 

 sanderlings ; and it was by no means easy to detect a specimen, 

 even when intentionally placed amongst the smaller stones. 



