BROWN PHALAROPE. 13 



returned. However, having had the good fortune, since publishing the 

 first edition, of examining a fine recent specimen of this rare bird, I 

 hope I shall be enabled to fix the species by such characters, as will 

 prevent any ornithologist in future from confounding it with the species 

 which follows ; two birds which, owing to a want of precision, were in- 

 volved in almost inextricable confusion, until Temminck applied himself 

 to the task of disembroiling them ; and this ingenious naturalist has 

 fully proved that the seven species of authors constituted, in eifect, only 

 two species. 



Temminck's distinctive characters are drawn from the bill ; and he 

 has divided the genus into two sections, an arrangement the utility of 

 which is not evident, seeing that each section contains but one species ; 

 unless we may consider that the Barred Phalarope of Latham consti- 

 tutes a third : a point not yet ascertained, and not easy to be settled, 

 for the want of characters. 



In my examination of these birds, I have paid particular attention to 

 the feet, which possess characters equally striking with those of the bill : 

 hence a union of all these will afford a facility to the student, of which 

 he will be fully sensible, when he makes them the subject of bis investi- 

 gation. 



Our figure of this species betrays all the marks of haste ; it is inaccu- 

 rately drawn, and imperfectly colored ; notwithstanding, by a diligent 

 study of it, I have been enabled to ascertain, that it is the Coot-footed 

 Tringa of Edwards, pi. 46, and 14-3, to which bird Linnaeus gave the 

 specific denomination of lobata, as will be seen in the synonymes at the 

 head of this article. In the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturae, the 

 Swedish naturalist, conceiving that he might have been in error, omitted, 

 in his description of the lobata, the synonyme of Edwards's Cock Coot- 

 footed Tringa, No. 143, and recorded the latter bird under the name of 

 hyperhorea, a specific appellation which Temminck, and other ornitholo- 

 gists, have sanctioned, but which the laws of methodical nomenclature 

 prohibit us from adopting, as, beyond all question, hyperhorea is only a 

 synonyme of lobata, which has the priority, and must stand. 



M. Temminck difiers from us in the opinion, that the T. lobata of 

 Gmelin, vol. I., p. 674, is the present species, and refers it to that which 

 follows. But if this respectable ornithologist will take the trouble to 

 look into the twelfth edition of Linnaeus, vol. i., p. 249, No. 8, he will 

 there find two false references, Edwards's No. 308, and Brisson's No. 1, 

 which gave rise to Gmelin's confusion of synonymes, and a consequent 

 confusion in his description, as the essential character in both authors 

 being in nearly the same words, {rostro subulato, apice infiexo, &c.) we 

 are at no loss to infer that both desci'iptions have reference to the same 

 bird ; and we are certain that the lobata of the twelfth edition of the 



