496 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



the underside.' Tonnies regarded it as a remarkable variety, having 

 no idea of the existence of a separate spotted species. In the 

 course of the summer this rare stranger was sold to a ' Badegast,' 

 just as the Demoiselle Crane (Gnus virgo), shot by Reymers in the 

 summer of 1837 was, except that I was not so fortunate in procur- 

 ing the specimen in this case as in the other instance. 



In May 1847, Glaus Aeuckens, having one day happened to 

 shoot a T-ringa rufescens, had noticed a small Sandpiper running 

 about close by it. This bird, roused by the shot, had followed 

 Aeuckens' imitation of its call-note, and kept soaring slowly, 

 quite low above him with light beats of the wings. Aeuckens at 

 once described this bird to me as white on the underside, with 

 many black spots in form like ' the small roundish black spots of 

 the Missel Thrush ' ; also, at that time, Aeuckens knew nothing of 

 T. maculatus, but, nevertheless, used to assert constantly that 

 what he had seen was another ' very rare ' bird ; unfortunately, at 

 that time he possessed only an old and simple musket, and had 

 not a second shot for the bird. 



This is all we are able to report from Heligoland in regard to 

 this small exclusively American species. In England, however, it 

 has been shot rather more frequently. 



Stilt Himantopus. Of this genus, which is closely related to 

 the Sandpipers, five species are distributed over all parts of the 

 earth. One of these is a resident in Europe, and is one of the rare 

 visitors to Heligoland. 



288. Black-winged Stilt [STELZENLAUFER]. 

 HIMANTOPUS RUFIPES, Bechstein. 1 



HypsiKates hymantopus. Naumann, viii. 191. 



Black-winged Stilt. Dresser, vii. 587. 



Echasse a manteau noire. Ternminck, Manuel, ii. 582, vi. 350. 



To the now almost extinct generation of old gunners and 

 fowlers of Heligoland the Black-winged Stilt was a well-known 

 bird, Reymers having, about fifty years ago, obtained an example of 

 this species. From that time the bird had not been seen again until 

 the 25th of June 1879, on which latter date Jan Aeuckens met 

 with an old white-headed specimen on the rubble in the water at 

 the foot of the cliff; unfortunately he had no gun at hand to 



1 Himantopus candidus, Bonnaterre. 



