256 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
any doubt about its being the common species, has been 
the means of misleading many. Once more the bird had 
to be resuscitated, see Yarrell, B. B, 1st ed., IL, p. 545, 
where a certain birdstuffer professes to have received oné 
unskinged from Cromer. What is become of the valuable (!) 
specimen I cannot say, nor does it signify. Mr. Stevenson 
having gone into the case some time ago, and satisfied him- 
self that it was set up from a foreign skin (B. of Norf., IL, 
Pp. 234). 
After this, a variety of spurious records found their way 
from time to time into print, for the most part based on a 
misapprehension of the correct coloration. I will take them 
seriatim. The first has reference to Shetland (Zool. 1844, 
p. 462), but is explained away in the “Birds of Shetland” 
(p 195). The second to Whitby, and is not explained at 
present. It was an adult female, (?) stated to have been 
shot on the 29th of March. Mr. E. T. Higgins saw it in 
the flesh (Zool. 2456), but the intestines had been removed. 
Doubts having been raised, I enquired if it could have been 
“drawn” and packed in salt, and sent over from America 
(cf. Zool., 1293), but Mr. Higgins says it certainly was not 
salted. Twelve months previously he had thought that he 
had seen one at Bridlington (Zool., 2147), which is about 
thirty miles south of Whitby. 
A short period elapsed, and in July, 1849, an announce- 
ment appeared from Mr. J. Duff (Zool. 2499), that within a 
few days of the occurrence at Whitby, one had been taken 
at Bishop Auckland; and after a brief interval a second 
was reported from that locality: but they proved on a 
more critical examination to be only examples of the Green 
Sandpiper. (Hancock. B. of Northum..and Dur., p. 123.). 
Mr. Hogg quotes Mr. J. Grey for its occurrence on the 
river Tees, (Zool. 1173), but I saw, I believe, the very bird. 
in Mr. Grey's collection at Stockton, and I am sorry to say. 
that this again was a Green Sandpiper. 
