BONAPARTES SANDPIPER. ^"^ 



Family— S COL OP A CID^. 



Bonaparte's Sandpiper. 



Tringa /uscicollis, ViElLL. 



AN American "stray" which has occurred a dozen or fifteen times in the 

 S.W. of England, the most eastern occurrence having been in Middlesex, 

 the most northern in Shropshire, and the bulk from Cornwall, Devon, and the 

 Scilly Islands. One . in Belfast Museum was probably obtained in the neighbour- 

 hood. Considerable confusion has resulted from Brehm's applying to the small 

 race of our Dunlin (as already mentioned) the name T. schinzii, which Bonaparte 

 had eight years before given to the present species. 



Bonaparte's Sandpiper is a bird of Eastern North America, seldom found 

 west of the Rocky Mountains, though it has occurred in Alaska. It breeds in 

 the American high north, from Labrador northwards, its breeding range extending 

 from the Mackenzie River to Greenland ; our British examples, and one reported 

 from Iceland, have probably come via Greenland. With the exception of one shot 

 in Franz Josef Land, (see " Ibis," January, 1898, etc.,) none have been obtained on 

 the Continent. On migration it passes through the Eastern and Central States, 

 wintering in the whole of South America. 



There is a convenience in classing this bird with the group of pointed-tailed 

 Tringas (the three foregoing species), as its central feathers are more than a quarter 

 of an inch longer than the external ones, and the bill is very Dunlin-like. But 

 it has equally often been classed with the Curlew Sandpiper, which it resembles 

 in its white upper tail-coverts. Seebohm called it the "American representative of 

 the Curlew Sandpiper." It never puts on a red breast, like the latter, however, 

 nor a black one, like the former. 



The upper parts shew the same combination of colours as those of the Dunlin 

 in summer ; this species shews little seasonal difference in the upper parts beyond 

 an additional "sandiness" in summer. The feathers of the upper parts are dark 

 brown, with light tawny-bufif and grey-buff edges ; in autumn the grey-buff 

 vanishes, or becomes more ruddy. No white on the secondaries except a narrow 

 external border. The under parts are white at all seasons, the sides of the head, 

 upper breast, and sides of the body being spotted with sooty on a white ground 



