BROWN PHALAROPE. 129 



Latham constitutes a third, a point not yet ascertained, 

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



In my examination of these birds I have paid par- 

 ticular attention 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 trin^a of Edwards, plate 46 and 143, to which 

 bird Linnaeus gave the specific denomination of lobata. 

 In the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturte, the 

 Swedish naturalist, 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 under the name of hyper- 

 borea, a specific appellation, which Temminck and 

 other ornithologists have sanctioned, but which the 

 laws of methodical nomenclature prohibit us from 

 adopting, 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. lobata of Gmelin, vol. i, p. 674, is the present 

 species, and refers it to that which follows. But, if 

 this respectable ornithologist will take the trouble to 

 look into the twelfth edition of Linnaeus, vol. i, p. 249, 

 No. 8, he will there find two false references, Edwards's 

 No. 308, and Brisson's No. 1, which gave rise to 

 Gmelin's confusion of synonymes, and a consequent 

 confiision in his description, as, the essential character 

 in both authors being nearly in the same words, (rostro 

 subulato, apice inflexo, *c.) we are at no loss to infer 

 that both descriptions have reference to the same bird ; 

 and we are certain that the lobata of the twelfth edition 

 of the former is precisely the same as that of the tenth 



VOL. III. I 5 



