236 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



THE PURPLE SANDPIPERS. GENUS ARQUATELLA. 



Arquatdla, Baird, B. N. Amer. p. 717 (1858). 



Type, A. maritima (Gm.). 



The genus Arquatella is very closely allied to the genus 

 Tringd) and is considered by most ornithologists to be identical 

 with it. The Purple Sandpiper, however, is a very short-legged 

 bird, and differs from the Dunlins in having the tarsus shorter 

 than the middle-toe. The tibia-tarsus, too, which is bare in 

 the Dunlins, is feathered down to the joint of the tarsus in the 

 genus Arquatella. Besides the ordinary Purple Sandpiper 

 there are two races which are closely allied to it, A. couesi, from 

 the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, and A. ptilocnemis, from the 

 Prybilof Group. 



I. THE PURPLE SANDPIPER. ARQUATELLA MARITIMA. 



Tringa maritima^ Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 678 (1788); Macgill. 



Brit. B. iv. p. 197 (1852); Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 

 < 192 (1885). ( 

 Tringa striata, Linn. ; Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 69, pi. 554 



(1877); B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 171 (1883); Saunders, 



ed. Yarrell, Brit. B. iii. p. 408 (1883); id. Man. Brit. B. 



p. 579 (1889) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxiv. 



(1893). 



Adult in Winter Plumage. General colour above sooty-black 

 with a purplish gloss, the feathers having pale margins of dull 

 ashy-grey, less distinct on the lower back, rump, and upper 

 tail-coverts, the longest of which have white tips; sides of rump 

 and lateral upper tail-coverts white, with narrow blackish shaft- 

 lines; wing-coverts like the back and having the same pale fringes ; 

 1 astard-wing and primary-coverts black, with white tips ; quills 

 dusky-brown, black along the outer web and at the tip of the 

 inner one, the secondaries tipped with white and having a con- 

 siderable amount of white on the inner web, which increases 

 in extent on the inner secondaries, which are entirely white or 

 have only a small mark of black on the outer web ; the inner- 

 most secondaries black ; centre tail-feathers blackish, the 

 remainder ashy-grey, fringed with white and having whitish 

 shafts ; head and neck uniform sooty-black, with a faint streak 



