192 BRITISH BIRDS. 



TRINGA MARITIMA*. 

 PURPLE SANDPIPER. 



(PLATE 31.) 



Tringa maritima, Brunn. Orn. Bor. p. 54 (1764) ; Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 678 (1788) : et 

 auctorum plurimorum Latham, Naumann, Temminck, Swainson, Audubon, 

 Schlegel, Gray, Gould, (Bonaparte), (Coues), (B air d, Brewer, Sf Ridyway\ &c. 



Tringa nigricans, Mont. Trans. Linn. Soc. iv. p. 40 (1798). 



Tringa canadensis, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. Suppl. p. Ixv (1801). 



Totanus maritimus (Gmel.), Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. xii. pt. i. p. 146 (1824). 



Trynga arquatella, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. ii. p. 190 (1826). 



Arquatella maritima (Gmel.), Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1861, p. 183. 



Arquatella couesi, Ridgiv. Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, 1880, p. 160. 



The Purple Sandpiper is a winter visitor to the British Islands, and is 

 found somewhat locally distributed in all suitable portions of our coasts 

 from Cornwall to the Orkney and Shetland Islands, Ireland, and the 

 Hebrides, but it does not appear to have been noticed on the Channel 

 Islands. A few birds sometimes linger in their winter- quarters throughout 

 the summer; and it has even been suspected that the Purple Sandpiper has 

 bred in some of the Outer Hebrides and in the Shetlands, but no thoroughly 

 authenticated eggs from any of these localities have yet been taken. In 

 its migrations the Purple Sandpiper is rather erratic ; and, like the Snow- 

 Bunting and the Waxwing, it is much commoner in some years than in 

 others. 



* Saunders, in his continuation of Newton's edition of ( Yarrell's British Birds,' has 

 followed Dresser, Salvin, and the Committee of the ' Ibis List,' who revived the blunder 

 long ago made by Fabricius, 0. F. Miiller, and Fleming in applying the name of Tringa 

 striata of Linnaeus to the Purple Sandpiper, instead of adopting the almost universally 

 accepted name of Tringa maritima. It is too bad that ornithologists of such standing should 

 thus capriciously complicate the synonymy of well-known birds to the despair of all good 

 naturalists. The Tringa striata of Linnaeus is founded upon the Tringa totanus striatus 

 of Brisson ; which Dresser himself admits to be the Redshank. It is true that Liuneeus 

 adds in his Addenda a fairly accurate diagnosis of the Purple Sandpiper as a synonym ; 

 but if he had intended it to supersede his own, he would have placed it in his Errata. 

 The rump is described as white, the tail as barred with dusky and white, and the wings 

 as being for the most part white. It is inconceivable how even the greatest craver after 

 new names can possibly associate such a description for a moment with the Purple 

 Sandpiper. The diagnoses of Linnaeus are bad enough ; but if they were as bad as Dresser 

 and his friends infer that they are, the wisest course for ornithologists would be to relegate 

 them to the waste-paper basket along with the synonymy of Brehm. It would perhaps 

 have been unreasonable to have expected that so mischievous a mistake should have been 

 corrected by the compilers of the 'Ibis List of British Birds.' Gross as the error is, it is 

 only one out of a hundred others due to the carelessness of the Committee, who seem to 

 have taken no pains whatever to correct the blunders of their predecessors. 



