220 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Genus CALIDRIS. 



Linnaeus appears to have been unaware that the Sander ling was a Swedish 

 bird ; but he includes it twice over as a European species once under the 

 genus Tringa, and a second time under the genus Charadrius, in each case 

 the diagnosis clearly referring to the Sanderling in winter plumage. In 

 both cases Brisson's plate is referred to. In 1800 Cuvier published a 

 chart in the first volume of his ' Le9ons d' Anatomic comparee/ in which 

 he is supposed to have treated the Sanderling as generically distinct from 

 the other Sandpipers under the name of Calidris ; and in 1 81 1 Illiger, in his 

 ( Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium/ formally established the 

 genus and described its characters, making the Sanderling (the Charadrius 

 calidris of Linnaeus) the type. In the meantime, however, in 1803, Bech- 

 stein, in his ' Ornithologisches Taschenbuch/ had made the Sanderling the 

 type of a genus Arenaria, founded upon the Tringa arenaria of Linnaeus ; 

 but this genus may be rejected on the ground that the name had not only 

 been applied by Brisson to the Turnstones, but also by Linnseus to a genus 

 of plants. 



The fact that the Sanderling is the only Sandpiper which has no hind 

 toe makes the diagnosis of the genus Calidris very simple. It forms 

 another connecting link between the closely allied genera Totanus and 

 Tringa, having the hard bill of the former and the cleft toes of the latter. 

 It also agrees with the latter genus in having no bars on the tail and in 

 having short legs. 



The genus Calidris only contains one species, which is a circumpolar 

 bird during the breeding-season, migrating southwards to winter. 



In its habits, food, &c. it resembles very closely the species in the nearly 

 allied genera. 



