BROWN PHALAROPE. OQ5 



owing to a want of precision, were involved in almost inextri- 

 cable confusion, untfc Temminck applied himself to the task of 

 disembroiling them; and this ingenious naturalist has fully prov- 

 ed that the seven species of authors constituted, in effect, only 

 two species. 



Temminck's distinctive characters are drawn from the bill; 

 and he has divided the genus into two sections, an arrangement 

 the utility of which is not evident, seeing that each section 

 contains but one species; unless we may consider that the Bar- 

 red Phalarope of Latham constitutes a third: a point not yet as- 

 certained, and not easy to be settled, for the want of characters. 

 In my examination of these birds, I have paid particular at- 

 tention to the feet, which possess characters equally striking 

 with those of the bill: hence a union of all these will afford a 

 facility to the student, of which he will be fully sensible, when 

 he makes them the subject of his investigation. 



Our figure of this species betrays all the marks of haste; it is 

 inaccurately drawn, and imperfectly coloured; notwithstanding, 

 by a diligent study of it, I have been enabled to ascertain, that 

 it is the Coot-footed Tringa of Edwards, pi. 46, and 143, to 

 which bird Linnaeus gave the specific denomination of lobata, 

 as will be seen in the synonymes at the head of this article. In 

 the twelfth edition of the Sy sterna Naturae, the Swedish natura- 

 list, conceiving that he might have been in error, omitted, in 

 his description of the lobata, the synonyme of Edwards's Cock 

 Coot-footed Tringa, No. 143, and recorded the latter bird un- 

 der the name of hyperborea, a specific appellation which Tem- 

 minck, and other ornithologists, have sanctioned, but which 

 the laws of methodical nomenclature prohibit us from adopt- 

 ing, as, beyond all question, hyperborea is only a synonyme 

 of lobata, which has the priority, and must stand. 



M. Temminck differs from us in the opinion, that the T. lo- 

 bata of Gmelin, vol. i, p. 674, is the present species, and re- 

 fers it to that which follows. But if this respectable ornitholo- 

 gist will take the trouble to look into the twelfth edition of Lin- 

 naeus, vol. i, p. 249, No. 8, he will there find two false refe- 



