BULLETIN 



NUTTALL OENITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



Vol. III. APRIL, 1878. No. 2. 



CHANGES IN OUR NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



BY T. M. BREWER. 



I PROPOSE four changes in our list of North American Birds as 

 now accepted : three additions and one subtraction ; the addition 

 of Totamis ochi'opus, jEgialitis hiaticula, and Larus canus, and the 

 rejection from the list of Podiceps cristatns. 



Tetanus ochropus, Linn. Green Sandpiper. This species, the 

 Ti-inga ochropus of Linnaeus, Gmelin, etc., the Totamis ochrojnis of 

 Temminck, the Helodromas of Kaup, the White-tailed Tatler of 

 Nuttall, and the Green Sandpiper of Dresser, and other more recent 

 authors, is entitled to a restoration to its place in the list of 

 North American birds, on the indisputable authority of T. Edmimd 

 Harting, Esq., of London. This gentleman, in March, 1873, in- 

 formed Professor Baird, by letter, that he had then recently re- 

 ceived from Mr. H. Whitely, a perfectly trustworthy dealer of 

 Woolwich, a small parcel of North American skins that had just 

 been sent to him from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Among these was an 

 example of this species. Upon inquiry Mr. Harting was assured by 

 Mr. Whitely that the skin actually came to him from Halifax, and 

 that it had been there prepared from a bird in the flesh. Mr. Harting 

 regarded it as " the first authentic instance of the occurrence of the 

 Totamis ochropus in North America." Nevei'theless this species had 

 previously been included by Mr. Nuttall (Water Birds, p. 157) as 

 one of the birds of North America, based upon an unverified claim 

 that two specimens had been taken at Hudson's Bay, a statement 

 also accepted by Richardson in the " Fauna Boreali-Americana " 



VOL. III. 4 



