The Solitary Sandpiper. ^57 



has had time to recover its usual presence of mind. Young birds do not always 

 call out when rising, however. It is found with us on migration from mid- 

 August; some few remain through the winter; the vernal migration takes place 

 in March and April, but odd examples are met with through the summer, probably 

 birds of the year before, who do not feel impelled to breed. 



This species has, in a still greater degree, the musky scent mentioned as 

 belonging to the last species. After writing the description above, taken from 

 skins, some of which had been in my collection for fifteen years or more, my 

 hands were as strongly scented from merely handling the birds as if they had 

 been Fulmar Petrels. I should imagine that the bird is particularly nasty to eat, 

 but have not been impelled to investigate this personally. 



Family-SCOL OP A CID^. 



Solitary Sandpiper. 



Toianus solitarius, WiLSON. 



A SPECIMEN of this New World species was shot on the Clyde, and brought 

 to notice, by Robert Gray, in the " Ibis," for 1870, page 292. Since then, 

 one has been obtained in the SciUy Islands and one in Cornwall. It is the 

 American representative of T. ochropus. It is smaller than that bird, however— at 

 least, than adults-being only 8i inches in length, with a closed wing of sf. It 

 lacks the white rump of our bird, that part of it being of the same colour as the 

 back and shoulders, though there are some white feathers at the sides, barred 

 with black. The central pair of tail-feathers is dark brown, with small white 

 marginal triangular spots; the rest of the tail white, barred with the same dark 

 brown ; the axiUaries are like those of the Green Sandpiper, only with rather 



broader white bars. 



It breeds in the Northern United States, and up to Alaska, and winters m 



