BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER. 59 



States and of Canada, says, "this elegant species, some 

 seasons, is not uncommon in the market of Boston, in the 

 months of August and September, being met with near the 

 capes of Massachusetts Bay. My friend Mr. Cooper has 

 also obtained specimens from the vicinity of New York. 

 Its food, while here, consists principally of land and marine 

 insects, particularly grasshoppers, which abounding in the 

 autumn, become the favourite prey of a variety of birds." 

 Vol. ii. p. 113. 



The figure in Mr. Audubon's work was taken from an 

 American specimen, procured at Boston. I regret, how- 

 ever, says the author, " that I can say nothing respecting 

 the habits or haunts of this bird, farther than, that having 

 seen a wing of it in the possession of my friend Captain 

 James Clark Ross, I think it probable that it breeds near 

 the Arctic Circle, as he received the wing from the sailors, 

 who had found it in the course of one of the numerous in- 

 land excursions in the desolate regions, from which these 

 intrepid navigators have recently returned." 



This species is readily distinguished from all the other 

 birds of this genus by the peculiar markings of the under 

 surface of the wings. 



The plumage and the state of the ossification of the tarsi, 

 prove my specimen to be a young bird of the year ; the 

 specimen obtained at Sherringham, of which Mr. John 

 Sims sent me a coloured drawing, and Mr. Heysham's ex- 

 ample, I believe to be also young birds, but whether they 

 had wandered from the north eastern shores of America to 

 the Arctic portion of Lapland, and had from thence accom- 

 panied the Dotterell, or other birds, in their southern 

 autumnal visit to this country, or had been bred in the 

 marshes of the counties in which they were killed, can only 

 be conjectured. M. Nilsson does not include it in his 

 Fauna of Scandinavia. 



