210 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family CHAEADEIID^. Genus Baeteamia. 



Subfamily, TOTANINM. 



BARTRAM'S SANDPIPER. 



BAETEAMIA LONGICAUDA— (Bec/isi!). 

 Plate XXVII. 

 Tringa longicauda, Beohstein, Kurze Uebersicht. p. 453 (1811). 



Bartramia longicauda (Bechst.), Yarrell, Brit, B. ed. 4, iii. p. 440 (1884) ; Lilford, 

 Col. Fig. Brit. B. pt. xxix. (1894) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iii. p. 267 (1896); 

 Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 509 (1896). 



Totanus bartrami (Wilson), Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 110 (1885) ; Dixon, Nests 

 and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 245 (1894) ; Seebohm, Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 

 134, pi. 44(1896). 



Geographical distribution — British .• Bartram's Sandpiper is a very 

 rare straggler to the British Islands on autumn migration. The following 

 occurrences are on record: — England: Warwickshire (one example), October, 

 1851 ; Cambridgeshire (one example), December, 1855 ; Somerset (one example), 

 no date recorded, some forty-five years ago ; Cornwall (two examples), November, 

 1865, October, 1883 ; Northumberland (one example), November, 1879; Lincoln- 

 shire (one example), October, 1880. Ireland (one doubtful occurrence), autumn, 

 1855. Foreign : Central Nearctic region, Neotropical region. In North America 

 Bartram's Sandpiper breeds in Alaska, Euperts Land, and the northern United 

 States, from Pennsylvania westwards to the foot of the Eockies, but appears to 

 be very rare on the Pacific coast. It passes along the inland routes of migration 

 as well as down the Atlantic coasts, and abnormally over the Bermudas, and 

 winters in the Southern States, Mexico, the West Indies, and throughout the 

 South American portion of the Intertropical realm. In the Southern hemisphere 

 the breeding grounds of this Sandpiper are not yet defined. It is found in summer 

 — from September to May — in the Argentine, and appears undoubtedly to breed 

 on the plains of that region, and possibly further south in Patagonia. It has 

 been known to wander to Australia, and there are several instances on record of 

 its occurrence in Europe outside of the British Islands : Italy, Malta, Holland, 

 Germany. 



Allied forms. — None of sufficient propinquity to need mention. 



Habits. — Bartram's Sandpiper is a well-known and very regular bird of 

 passage across the eastern United States. The "Prairie Pigeon," as this species 

 is locally named, crosses the boundless prairies which extend from the Mississippi 



