RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 351 



and systematical history of the species, referring the reader to Wilson 

 for its natural one. 



In its winter plumage the adult Red-breasted Snipe, then called 

 Brown Snipe, is so different from the young and from the perfect bird 

 in summer dress, that it is no wonder that it should have been con- 

 sidered a distinct species, especially as it is the only Snipe that under- 

 goes such changes, and analogy could therefore no longer serve to guide 

 us. "While passing gradually from one plumage to another, the feathers 

 assume so many appearances as to excuse in some degree even the errors 

 of those who have been led to multiply the nominal species by taking a 

 wrong view of the genus to which it belonged. 



Pennant, soon followed by Latham, was the first to make known our 

 Snipe, which they described in both vestures, and the bird was registered 

 accordingly in the ill-digested compilation of Gmelin. Wilson per- 

 ceived that the two supposed species were one and the same, retaining 

 for it the name of Scolopax noveboracensis, which appertained originally 

 to the summer dress alone. That given to the winter dress is now how- 

 ever with more propriety adopted by all modern ornithologists. As 

 some birds of the old continent are known occasionally to stray to the 

 American shores,* so this common American bird visits accidentally the 

 north of Europe, and especially its islands. There are several instances 

 of its having been killed in the British Isles, where more than one 

 English specimen is preserved, small parties even of these birds having 

 been seen there at different periods and in their different dresses. But 

 these instances are by no means so frequen^ as reported in authors, the 

 Limosa rufa and Tringa islandica having been mistaken for it. A spe- 

 cimen in ambiguous plumage, straying into Sweden from the marshes 

 of Lapland (where they may be more common), afforded Nilsson the 

 opportunity of contributing his part to the confusion, but as he gave a 

 figure, besides describing the bird with his characteristic accuracy, it 

 was at once detected. Since Temminck, it is only wilful obstinacy oi 

 gross ignorance that can persist in regarding as species the different 

 states of a bird so well marked in its natural genus as to deserve a 

 subgenus for itself, and still more on account of its habits than its 

 conformation (notwithstanding Temminck's statements to the contrary), 

 as will be evident from the following generalities on the genus Scolopax. 



This genus, as instituted by Linn^, and adopted by authors from 

 Latham to Wilson, was, like Tringa, a great receptacle, though with 

 the advantage of not containing a single species that is not still admitted 

 as of at least the same family. But however extensive it may have 



* The Tringa pugnax of Europe, we are informed by Mr. Cooper, who has com- 

 pared the specimen with one of this species from Austria in analogous plumage, 

 has been shot on Long Island in the state of New York. 



