136 BRITISH BIRDS. 



TOTANUS FLAVIPES. 

 YELLOW-LEGGED SANDPIPER. 



(PLATE 32.) 



Scolopax flavipes, Omel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 659 (1788) ; et auctorum plurimorum 

 Wilson, (Sivainson fy Richardson), (Audubori), (Cones), (Baird, Brewer, fy Ride/- 

 way}, &c. 



Totanus natator, i 



Totanus fuscocapillus, 1 Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. vi. pp. 400, 409, 410 (1816). 

 Totanus flavipes (Gmel), ) 



Gambetta flavipes (Gmel), Bonap. Compt. Rend. p. 597 (1856). 

 Totanus leucopyga, Ittiger,Jide Giebel, Thes. Orn. iii. p. 645 (1877). 



The Yellow-legged Sandpiper, Yellowshank, or Yellow-legs, as it is 

 variously called, is an American bird which is said to have occurred three 

 times in the British Islands. It was figured and described by Yarrell 

 (Hist. British Birds, 3rd ed. iii. p. 637) from an example in the collection 

 of Sir William Milner, to whom it had been sold by Reid, the birdstuffer 

 in Doncaster, who supposed it to be a Wood-Sandpiper, and stated that it 

 was killed at Misson, about two and a half miles north-east of Bawtry, on 

 the borders of Lincolnshire, by one of a small party of men residing at 

 Misson, who got their living by shooting wildfowl during the season, which 

 they sent to Doncaster (Milner, ( Zoologist/ 1858, p. 5958) . 



The second record of the occurrence of this species in the British Islands 

 is still less satisfactory, resting solely on the authority of a York birdstuffer 

 (Graham, ' Naturalist/ 1858, p. 291), who merely stated that a fine female 

 of the Yellowshank, shot near Tadcaster by a Mr. N. B. Thompson, was 

 then (17th of Oct. 1858) in his shop in the flesh waiting to be skinned. 



The third record, however (Rodd, ' Zoologist/ 1871, p. 2807), can scarcely 

 be disputed. This example, an adult male, of which a full description is 

 given, was shot on the 12th of Sept. 1871, "by Mr. Edward Vingoe, from 

 the margin of a pool in a salt-marsh near Marazion, about two miles from 

 Penzance, a few yards from the sea." 



The Yellow-legged Sandpiper is the American representative of the Wood- 

 Sandpiper*. It was originally described by Pennant, in his 'Arctic Zoology/ 



* It is a very thankless office to point out the numerous blunders of previous writers 

 but unless they are corrected, the student must waste much valuable time in trying to 

 reconcile the discrepancies which he is sure to discover, if he be at all interested in his 

 subject. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway are wrong in saying that " the European analogue 

 of T.Jlavipes is the T. stagnatilis." The latter bird is nearest allied to the Redshank. I 

 cannot believe that a slight difference in the length of the tarsus can override similarity of 

 colour, similarity of pattern of colour, and similarity of seasonal changes of colour, and 



