SCOLOPACID^. 343 



tion. It is unfortunate that this specimen should have disappeared, as it 

 is possible it was incorrectly identified, and it has been recorded on our 

 authority in Harting's ' Handbook of British Birds,' p. 13S, and in 

 Yarrell's ' British Birds,' 4th ed. iii. p. 437. In the ' Zoologist ' for 1857, 

 p. 5791, Mr. Henry jS'ichoUs records a female specimen obtained in 

 September of that year near Kingsbridge, but Mr. J. H. Gurney believes 

 it to have been a young Ruif (Harting's ' Handbook of British Birds,' 

 p. 138). There is a Buff-breasted Sandpiper in the collection of birds 

 formed by the Eev. Alan Furneaux, of St. Germans, Cornwall, presented 

 to him by Capt. Creyke, li.X., and now in the Plymouth Institution, but 

 we have not been able to ascertain where it was obtained. 



[Bartram's Sandpiper. ActHurus longicauda (Bech- 

 stein). 



This species, somewhat larger than the preceding one, is also a chance 

 migrant to this country from America, and is very similar in its habits, 

 but differs in being very numerous, sometimes being seen in Texas in flocks 

 of thousands. It differs again from the Buff-breasted Sandpiper in breeding 

 throughout the United States, so that its beautiful eggs, which closely 

 resemble those of the Woodcock, are common in collections. American 

 sportsmen consider Bartram's Sandpiper a fine game-bird, and it is known 

 to them by various names, such as Upland Plover and Prairie Pigeon, and 

 Dr. Coues states that it " is best shot from a carriage." We have never 

 seen a Devonshire example of this Sandpijier, but detected one, its 

 possessor not knowing what it was, in Dr. Woodforde's collection at 

 Taunton, which had been shot many years before on the Bridgwater river 

 at Combwitch. This bird is now, with the rest of Dr. Woodforde's col- 

 lection, in the Taunton Castle ^Museum, and is in a greyer plumage than 

 any other example of Bartram's Sandpiper we have examined. In 

 Cornwall, a county singularly rich in rare Sandpipers, two examples have 

 been recorded. The first was recognized and purchased November 13th, 

 1865, by Dr. Bullmore, hanging up in Webber's game-shop at Falmouth. 

 It had been flushed by a farmer's son in a turnip-field at Mullion. " It 

 rose singly, uttering a short shrill scream, flew over the hedge, and dropped 

 into a ditch by the side of a contiguous road. On the approach of its 

 pursuer it again flushed, alighting this time in the middle of a lay field, 

 where it was shot. It was sent, in company with Woodcocks and Snipes, 

 to the game-shop, from which ])lace I was fortunate enough to rescue it." 

 (Dr. Bullmore, ' Cornish Fauna.') This specimen weighed a little over 

 6 oz. A second Cornish Bartram's Sandpiper was shot at St. Keverne, 

 near the Lizard, in October 1883, and recorded in the ' Zoologist ' for that 

 year, p. 4!J5, by Mr. Thomas Cornish of Penzance. This bird is now in 

 the possession of Dr. H. S. Leverton, of 08 Lomon Street, Truro, whose 

 l)rother shot it, and in whose house it was examined by Mr. H. E. Dresser, 

 who describes it as being very pale-coloured in its plumage (H.K. Dresser, 

 Zool. ]885, p. 232). Bartram's Sandpiper may easily be distinguished 



