37 8 SHORE BIRDS OF NOVA SCOT IA — GILPIN. 



piper (Tringa minutela), the greater sand piper (Tringa Bairdii). 

 and the seinipalniated sand piper, E pusillus. It is with the 

 greatest doubt I make this classification, as I think Tringa Bair- 

 dii too recent a nomenclature for a bird so well known. In Xut- 

 tall's work, so singular for its truth, he marks the Stint, a bird 

 that I have never seen here or any sand peeps with any lateral 

 tail feathers white. Besides in his descriptions and measurements 

 he confounds at least four species. I shall minutely describe the 

 two species of the Ring plover as I find them here, only saying 

 that they as well as the sand peeps Were selected from a heap of 

 dead, brought in from shooting, and containing all five species of 

 Ring plover and sand peeps in one stiffened mass. 



Common Ring Plover shot at Digby, N. S.> August 12, 1876 : 



Length, 7 J inches. 



Wino- to winor 15 inches 



Bill, f inch. 



Tarsus, 1 inch. 



Toes, I inch. 

 The bill Was high at base, nostrils basal black at tip, dull orange 

 at base, legs and toes dull orange, nails black, joints pencilled 

 black, no hind toe, toes joined at base with webs, outer web 

 nearly double the inner. In colour, forehead, chin, neck running 

 behind the head, all below and inside the wing, white. Above 

 head, hind head, back, shoulders and wing coverts, olive brown. 

 The forehead is black, holding within it a white spot, and run- 

 ning beneath the eye to the lores. A deep black collar, nearly an 

 inch broad and running insensibly at the back into brown, sur- 

 rounds the neck. Tail, when closed, black, sides of rurnp lightest ; 

 tail of twelve feathers. Outside feather white outer edge, more 

 or less white on tips of four outside feathers, middle feathers 

 black at ends ; primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries more or less 

 dark with white shafts, coverts tipped obscurely with white 

 Some specimens had scarlet rings around the eyes, some not. 

 The olive brown colour and the semipalmated and orange foot, 

 determine their species very easily, as the semipalmated 

 plover of Wilson, and the iEgialites semipalmatus of Coues. 

 Another Ring neck shot in August, 1876, differed froni these in 



