86. ON THE ORNITHOLOGY OF CORNWALL. 
shank (Totanus calidris) and the Dusky or Spotted Redshank 
(Totanus fuscus). The upper plumage, including the greater and 
lesser coverts, is hair-brown, with a few ash-grey and dark 
blotches, and otherwise studded, although not very distinctly, 
with white, somewhat resembling the spots on the Wood Sand- 
piper’s upper plumage. ‘The colour of the legs at the time it was 
killed was reported to me, by Mr. Edward Vingoe who shot it, as 
being pale yellow giving way soon after death to a yellowish- 
olive tone. Under parts pure white; neck and breast striated 
with hair-brown. The wing quills, both primary and secondary, 
quite plain, without white. In the Redshank the secondaries show 
a good deal of white. The axillary flank feathers in this speci- 
men are barred and not white, as mentioned by Yarrell. The 
Redshank has these plumes pure white, and this extends over the 
body plumage above the upper tail coverts and under the scapulary 
feathers; but in the Yellow Shanks this body plumage is dark 
grey, the only white appearing at the roots of the tail, forming a 
bar 3 of an inch deep. All the under parts, from the belly to 
the under tail coverts, pure unsullied white. In the Redshank - 
this posterior under plumage behind the legs is streaked with 
pale brown. From the abrased edges of the wing feathers, the 
specimen appears to be adult. I observed that the legs were 
much less bulky than those of the Redshank. This species of 
Sandpiper is well known and common on the continent of America. 
From our Cornish shores being the first land from North America, 
Naturalists are now pretty well prepared for all sorts of occasional 
American stragglers, both in Land and Water Birds, turning up 
in Cornwall; and this should be regarded as a point of especial 
interest and encouragement to our county, and to those who are 
disposed to take up Natural History as a science. 
Amongst other birds of comparative rarity and interest that 
have been noticed since your last Spring Meeting, I may mention 
the Avocet, with its curious recurved bill resembling a cobbler’s 
awl, which was reported in the “ Zoologist,” by Mr. Gatcombe of 
Stonehouse, as having occurred on the St. Germans River. This 
prettily marked piebald bird has become comparatively rare 
throughout the kingdom since the drainage of the Fen lands has 
been perfected, by which the economy of their feeding-ground 
has been destroyed. 
