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published) :— " One, Marazion Marsh, Cornwall, 10th Oct. 1853 : Rodd, Zoologist, 1854, p. 4297 ; 

 Yarrell, Hist. Brit. Birds (preface to 3rd edition). In the collection of Mr. Vingoe. — One, 

 Northam Burrows, Devon, Sept. 1869: Rodd, The Field, 23rd Oct. 1869; Zoologist, 1869, 

 p. 1920; Rickards, Zoologist, 1870, p. 2025. In the collection of Mr. Rickards*." 



We cannot congratulate ourselves sufficiently on having obtained for the present work the 

 cooperation of our friend Dr. Elliot Coues, who by his excellent contributions has enabled us to 

 give such good accounts of all the American birds which are rare visitors to Europe. We 

 subjoin the following notes which he has kindly sent us on the present species: — 



"The distinction of this bird from T. minuta may be regarded as established. When I 

 handled the subject in 1861, my material was insufficient, and some doubts lingered until 

 recently ; but the difference in size I then noted has been confirmed, and other characters added, 

 by yourselves, in the very satisfactory analysis of the group that you kindly submitted to me in 

 advance of its publication. There is no question, moreover, of the applicability of Vieillot's 

 T. minutilla to the ordinary North-American bird ; and, after examining specimens from all parts 

 of the continent, to be counted by scores if not by hundreds, I have seen nothing indicating a 

 second species. In fact, I regard the matter of T. fuscicollis, Vieill., as the only technical 

 question of American Stints left open. I am not able to settle it authoritatively, not having 

 compared skins from Vieillot's locality ; but all that we know of the distribution, and particularly 

 the migrations, of T. minutilla is against the probability that T. fuscicollis is distinct. Should it 

 prove identical, we shall have a case that simply tallies with the usual distribution of the 

 smaller American Grallse, the greater number of them being common to both divisions of the 

 hemisphere. 



" The .range of this little Stint is so nearly coincident with the whole extent of North 

 America that there is no occasion to particularize localities ; indeed I scarcely think one could 

 cover with his finger a spot of the map, in the neighbourhood of water, that it never visits, 

 unless it be along the uttermost polar line. We know the species as an Antillean and Central- 

 American bird in winter ; and when Tringa fuscicollis is found out, a still more tropical range, 

 during a part of the year, will probably be demonstrated. We may therefore pass at once to 

 the consideration of its migrations, the immense extent of which is not the least interesting item 

 in the bird's history. The broad statement that throughout the United States (what was the 

 United States before Russian America was annexed, to the great inconvenience of ornithologists !) 

 this Stint is a bird of passage requires little qualification, and that entirely on account of its 

 winter range to the southward. We can gather from the rather meagre advices from our 

 southern border that a number of birds pass the winter there, though unquestionably the greater 

 part leave our shores for the Antilles and go clown into Mexico. For example, it is reported as 

 ' common ' in Florida in winter (Maynard, apud Allen, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoology, ii. p. 356); and 

 it occurs at the same season in South Carolina (nobis, Pr. Bost. Soc. 1868, p. 122), though far less 

 numerously than during the passage. In North Carolina, however, where I paid particular 

 attention to the water-birds whilst living on the sea-shore for a couple of years, I never saw it 



" * Mr. Rickards kindly brought this specimen to London, shortly after he had skinned it, in order that 

 I might see it. "We compared it with skins in my collection from North and South America and the West 

 Indies, and were satisfied of its identity with Wilson's species." — J. E. H. 



