384 SHORE BIRDS OF NOVA SCOTIA — GILPIN\ 



tain. The pectoral sand piper Sept., 1865, Halifax, and after- 

 wards at Digby. The buff breasted sand piper I note Provincial 

 Museum, Halifax, and the purple sand piper at Halifax. The 

 knot or ash coloured sand piper, Sept., 1880 and 1881, in winter 

 plumage. The semi-palmated Snipe or Willet, Digby, June, 1877. 

 Both species of the yellow shanks, the larger and the lesser, are 

 both common in September. Of the tattlers, the solitary or 

 green rump tattler is common ; barn snipe as it is called from its 

 solitary haunts about barn pools, and the spotted tattler, is com- 

 mon everywhere. Of Bartram's tattler, or the grass plover, I 

 note one specimen, and that from Sable Island, 1868. This 

 brings us to the Godwits, both species of which, Marbled and 

 Hudsonian, I have noted, the Hudsonian shot, in August. The 

 brown or red breasted snipe is the last autumn visitor I will 

 mention as noted in September. 



I have never met with the Dunlin or Ox bird in Nova Scotia,, 

 nor do I mention the Phaloropes, though I have seen them and 

 think we have two species, certainly the rose colored one, but 

 am not able to identify them. Wilson's snipe and the Wood- 

 cock are common residents, breeding here, the latter plenty,, 

 though it iequires a good dog, gun, and quick shot to find them. 

 I have seen a bag of twelve or thirteen couple made by my son 

 in a few hours, besides grouse and hares, when he combined all 

 these attributes at one time. A wounded woodcock that I kept 

 by me was lively at night, and always kept its tail spread and 

 crested like a fan over its back. In this paper I have given only 

 my own personal observations of what was seen in Nova Scotia. 

 No doubt many species of North American birds do not pass our 

 shores. In endeavouring to clear the vexed story of the peeps 

 or sand pipers I have thought it best to describe the only three 

 well marked species that I have noticed ; and to say that how- 

 ever numerous or varied other North American species may be, I 

 have not found them here. To attempt to class our species here 

 with those of Wilson, Nuttall, or Richardson, is to immediately 

 fall into a crowd of stints, pigmies, lesser pusilla, minor sand 

 peeps, all of which seem to have the same measurement and col- 

 ouring. Amongst these the semi-palmata seems to stand out boldly 



