244 SCOLOPACID^ : SNIPE, ETC. 



birds found about Calais, Me., speaks of the Ruff as 

 accidentally occurring in that vicinity in one or two, 

 instances (Pr. Bost. Soc, ix, 1862, p. 129). On the 

 strength of these cases, Coues appears to have included 

 the species in his New England List of 1868, with the 

 remark : " Accidental from Europe ; several instances of 

 its capture on the New England coast " (Pr. Essex Inst., 

 v, 1868, p. 296). 



Dr. Brewer, however, speaks as if Mr. Boardman's 

 captures were not actually made within Maine limits, 

 and would open the New England record with the 

 unquestionable case recorded by Mr. Brewster in Am. 

 Nat., vi, 1872, p. 306 ; that of a specimen taken on the 

 Newburyport marshes, May 20, 1871. This was a 

 female, with the ovaries so active that it was judged she 

 would soon have laid. The same gentleman also gives 

 the second definite New England record : a female, 

 killed at Upton, Oxford Co., Maine, Sept. 8, 1874 (Bull. 

 Nutt. Club, i, 1876, p. 19). Mr. Gordon Plummer has 

 a young male specimen, shot by a Mr. Churchill at 

 Chatham, Mass., Sept. 11, 1880, as recorded in Forest 

 and Stream of Oct. 7, 1880, p. 186 — said to be the 

 second for Massachusetts, the third for New England, 

 and the ninth for North America. 



It may be further mentioned here that the Ruff has 

 even been taken in Ohio — Nov. 10, 1872, at the Lick- 

 ing Reservoir, thirty miles east of Columbus, by Theo- 

 dore Jasper (see Wheaton, Bull. Nutt. Club, ii, 1877, 

 p. 83). 



