296 SCOLOFACID.E. 



emulous strife for the possession of the little trifles that form 

 their subsistence. I have drawn these birds near me by imitating 

 their melancholy whistle. When wounded, they swim with suc- 

 cess and apparent ease." 



I have remarked fully the half of a moderate-sized flock of 

 these birds engaged at the same time performing their ablutions 

 most deliberately in the flowing tide. 



The summer and winter plumage of the bird under considera- 

 tion is so different, that until about fifty years ago it was con- 

 sidered in each state to be a distinct species, dunlin being the 

 name applied to it in summer, and purre in winter. The following 

 exceptions to the ordinary plumage at particular periods have been 

 noted. So late as September 26, 1827, I remarked some in which 

 the breast and belly retained the black summer garb, and on the 

 12th of October, 1836, obtained a male bird in full winter dress : 

 it was in this respect very different from about thirty killed at the 

 same shot, all of them being in the half-dunlin and half-purre 

 plumage common to the period of the year. 



When walking from Terracina towards Cape Circello — the fabled 

 island of Circe — on the 7th of August, 1826, I met with a small 

 flock of these birds ; and on the 1st of June, 1841, saw five of 

 them at what is believed to be the fountain Inopus, mentioned by 

 Pliny, in the island of Delos. I possess a specimen of this bird, 

 which flew on board a vessel at sea in 1834, in latitude 42° north, 

 longitude 54° west. 



The Pectoral Sandpiper. — Tringa pectoralis, Bonap., has not 

 been detected in Ireland, but, being an American species, we may yet 

 hope to meet with it. Three individuals only — as particularly noticed 

 in Mr. Yarrell's work (vol. hi. p. 77, second edit.) — have been obtained 

 in Great Britain and the adjacent islets — one in Norfolk, another at 

 the Scilly Islands (by D. W. Mitchell, Esq.), and a third on the 

 coast of Durham. 



