RECURVIROSTRA AMERICANA: AMERICAN AVOCET. l8l 



country seldom visited, and New England is one of 

 these. Here the bird is little more than a straggler, 

 though not rare further South on the Atlantic coast. It 

 thus becomes necessary to examine the records for cases 

 of its occurrence among us. 



The record left by the Rev. Mr. Linsley is discred- 

 ited by Mr. Merriam (Rev. B. Conn., 1877, p. 146) as 

 resting upon insufficient evidence. But Mr. Merriam is 

 able to furnish an authentic instance of the presence of 



Fig. 41. — Head and Leg of Avocet. Reduced. 



the bird in Connecticut, one of his correspondents, Mr. 

 J. G. Ely, writing to him, that a specimen was found in 

 1871, between Saybrook and East Lyme, in an old seine 

 strung out on the beach to dry (Rev. B. Conn., 1877, p. 

 103). Dr. Brewer states this to be " the only instance 

 of its capture within our limits that is on record, all the 

 others having been extra-limital or without particulars " 

 (Pr. Bost. Soc, xix, 1878, p. 307). Mr. G. A. Board- 

 man had indeed noted some years before (Pr. Bost. Soc, 

 ix, 1862, p. 128), the capture of a specimen in Maine, 

 but this turned out to have been taken in New Bruns- 

 wick. In 1875, therefore, Dr. Brewer removed the 

 species from the New England List, with the following 

 comments : " This has been placed among the Birds of 



