452 



PHEGORNIS. 



Literature. 



Specific 

 characters. 



Only 



examples 

 known to 

 exist. 



Plates. — Peale, U. States Exploring Exp. 1838-42, viii. Birds, pi. lxvi. fig. 2. 

 Peale, U. States Exploring Exp. 1838-42, viii. p. 235. 



Habits.") 

 Eggs, j 



Peale's Short-winged Sandpiper may be distinguished from its two allies by its 

 combination of the two characters, underparts barred and a well-developed hind toe. 



It was originally described by Latham from an example in the collection of Sir 

 Joseph Banks, said to have come from Christmas Island 1 (Ellis's unpublished drawings in 

 the British Museum of birds obtained on the third voyage of Capt. Cook, no. 64). It was 

 rediscovered by Peale, during the Wilkes United States Exploring Expedition, on Dog 

 Island and Raraka Island, both belonging to the Paumota Archipelago. There are no 

 later records of its occurrence, and the only examples known to exist are those in the Smith- 

 sonian Institution in Washington. 



Peale's Sandpiper is probably one of the least changed descendants of the ancestors of 

 the Sandpipers. It presents many characters which are peculiar to young birds, but there 

 can be no question as to the age of the examples in the Smithsonian Institution. One of 

 them is moulting its primaries ; the first is an old ragged rusty feather, the second is half- 

 grown, whilst the rest are new. So far as is known, no species of Charadriidse moults its 

 quills until it has assumed the plumage of the adult bird ; and it is not at all uncommon to 

 find birds which have moulted all their feathers from the immature plumage, except their 

 quills, which still retain the pale tips of the first feathers. 



PHEGORNIS LEUCOPTERUS. 



POPSTER'S SANDPIPER. (Plate XVIII.) 



Diagnosis. Phegornis corpore subtus haud fasciato. 



Variations. The two varieties mentioned by Latham are probably older or younger birds than the one 

 first described. 



Synonymy. Tringa leucoptera, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 678 (1788). 



Totanus leucopterus (GmeL), Vieillot, N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. vi. p. 396 (1817). 



1 The island in the Pacific Ocean rather more than a thousand miles due south of the Sandwich Islands, 

 not the island of the same name in the Indian Ocean about two hundred miles south of Java. 



