DUSKY REDSHANK. 145 



TOTANUS FUSC US. 

 DUSKY REDSHANK. 



(PLATE 32.) 



Tringa totanus ruber, I ^ ^ y< ^ 



Limosa fusca, \ 



Scolopax fusca, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 243 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum 



(Naumann), (Temminck), (Dresser), (Saunders), &c. 

 Scolopax maculata, Tunstall, Orn. Brit. p. 3 (1771). 

 Scolopax cantabrigiensis, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. i. p. 292 (1787). 

 Scolopax nigra, j 



Scolopax curonica, [ Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. pp. 659, 669, 673 (1788). 

 Tringa atra, ) 



Scolopax natans, Otto, Uebers. Buff. Vog. xxvi. p. 234 (1797). 

 Totanus maculatus (Tunstall), \ 



Totanus fuscus (Linn.), 1 Bechst. Orn. Taschenb. pp. 284, 286 (1803). 



Totanus natans (Otto), 



Tringa longipes, Leisl. Nacht, Bechst. Naturg. Deutschl. ii. p. 189 (1813). 

 Totanus raii, Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. 8fc. Brit. Mus. p. 31 (1816). 

 Erythroscelus fuscus (Linn.), Kaup, Natilrl. Syst. p. 54 (1829). 



The Dusky or Spotted Redshank is a somewhat rare visitor to the 

 British Islands on spring and autumn migration, occurring most often at 

 the latter season. It is frequently met with on the low-lying eastern 

 coasts of England, but is only a rare straggler to the west. In Scotland 

 it occasionally strays to the eastern coasts as far north as Orkney, but is 

 totally unknown in the west. Its visits to Ireland are equally rare and 

 uncertain; in Thompson's time only one example had been recorded, 

 but since 1867 two other specimens have been obtained and several birds 

 seen in the Moy estuary. 



The Dusky Redshank is not known with certainty to breed anywhere 

 south of the Arctic circle *", but on the tundras above the limit of forest- 

 growth it breeds from Lapland to Behring's Straits, though nowhere very 

 abundantly. It has not been recorded from Greenland, Iceland, or the 



* Sabanaeff says that the Dusky Redshank breeds in the government of Moscow and in 

 the Ekatereenberg district ; but no reliance can be placed on this statement, or on the 

 equally improbable one that the Knot and the Little Stint breed in the latter district- 

 assumptions which are no doubt solely founded upon the fact that the birds are seen in 

 these districts in summer plumage in May and June. Severtzow's statement that it breeds 

 in Turkestan is equally unreliable, because he says that it breeds in the cultivated region 

 below four thousand feet altitude. If it breeds at all in Turkestan, which is not impos- 

 sible, the district it chooses is most likely that above the limit of forest-growth, from ten 

 to fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. 



VOL. III. L 



