EURINORHYNCHUS PYGMJEUS. 



Spoon-billed Sandpiper. 



Platalea pygmata, Linn. Mas. Ad. Frid., torn, ii., Prod. p. 26,-Id. Syst. Nat., 12th edit., torn. i. p. 231 ; Gmel. 

 edit., torn. i. p. 615. 



Eurinorhynchus griseus, Temm. Man. d'Orn, 2nd edit., torn. ii. p. 594,-Nilss. Orn. Suec, torn. ii. p. 29.-Jerd. 



Birds of India, vol. ii. part ii. p. 693. 

 pygmaus, Pears. Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng, vol. v. p. 127.-W. Asiat. Res., vol. xix. p. 69, pi. 9.- 



Bonap. Compt. Rend., torn, xliii. p. 596.-Gray & Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. hi. p. 580, pis. 152 and 



156. fig. 6.-Harting, in Ibis, 1869, p. 426.-Gray, Hand-list of Birds, part hi. p. 51.-Swinh. in Ibis, 



1867, pp. 234, 235. 



orientalis, Blyth, Ann. & Mag. of Nat. Hist., 1844, vol. xiii. pp. 178, 179.— Id. Cat. of Birds in 



Mus. Asiat. Soc. Calcutta, p. 270. 



Not more than twenty-four specimens of this highly curious little Sandpiper have been collected in a hundred 

 years ; and besides these, few others have been seen or satisfactorily determined as being identical with this 

 rare bird. Linnaeus was comparatively but a young man wben he first became aware of the existence of such an 

 anomaly. Nothing was then recorded respecting its history ; nor should we have known where to look for the 

 bird, had not other examples been obtained from time to time during the interval between the date when Linnaeus 

 wrote (1764) and that of Mr. Swinhoe's visit to China in 1866 (vide Ibis, 1867, p. 234). Had the illustrious 

 Swede's specimen been the only one known, we might naturally have supposed that it was a mere lusus or freak 

 of nature— an accidental dilatation of the mandibles of a Little Stint or some nearly allied species, so closely 

 does the Eurinorhynchus assimilate to those birds ; but as all the examples since discovered are alike, there 

 is no doubt in my mind as to the specific if not the generic value of its distinguishing characters. Besides 

 the general resemblance of its structure, the bird undergoes precisely the same changes of plumage in 

 winter and summer as the Little Stint (Actodromas minutci) — the grey, white, and brown plumage of winter 

 giving place to a russet-red colouring, more or less diffused, at the opposite season. 



The habitat of Linnseus's example was stated to be Surinam ; but this is a point which cannot now be deter- 

 mined : the chances are that a wrong locality was given to him, and that the temperate regions of the 

 Old World and some parts of the Arctic Circle are its true home — the winter being spent at the sandy 

 mouths of the great rivers of China and Asia generally, whence the bird retires northward to breed in 

 those high regions upon which man has not yet entered, but where, doubtless, many others of our rarer 

 Sandpipers lay their eggs and reproduce their young. Still this is mere surmise ; and I might not have 

 suspected such a probability had not the specimen in full summer plumage, now in the new Museum at 

 Oxford, been collected on the verge of the polar seas. 



An elaborate essay respecting this species having been published by Mr. Harting, I will say no more, 

 but give this gentleman all the credit he deserves for the masterly manner in which he has treated the 

 subject, by transcribing a large part of what he has said in ' The Ibis' for 1869. 



"Notwithstanding the vagrant habits of the species which compose the Limicolce, and the increasing re- 

 searches of naturalists in all quarters of the globe, it is remarkable that a bird which was described more 

 than a century ago by Linnaeus should still be one of the rarest and least-known. From a perusal of 

 all that has hitherto been published with reference to this species, it would appear that those who followed 

 more immediately in the wake of Linnaeus did little else than copy his original description, perpetuating 

 by so doing the erroneous habitat which had been assigned to the bird, and adding little or nothing to 

 its history. Under the name of Platalea pygmcea or Eurynorhynchus griseus, certain authors have created 

 some confusion by describing birds which were properly referable to some other species ; while the few 

 original descriptions on record have all been taken from specimens which were procured in the winter 

 plumage. For a long time the true habitat of Eurynorhynclms was unknown ; and even at the present 

 day its precise geographical range remains undetermined. 



" The earliest notice of this species is to be found in an octavo catalogue usually appended to his 

 'Museum Ludovicre Ulrica Regime Suecorum,' &c, published by Linnaeus in 1764, but entitled ' Museum 

 Adolphi Friderici Regis Suecorum,' &c, Tomi secundi Prodromus. He, no doubt from the form of the 

 bill, referred this species to the genus Platalea-, a comparison, however, shows that beyond this resem- 

 blance it has really no connexion with that form. Its affinities, as pointed out by Cuvier and Temminck, 

 are certainly with the genus Tringa ; ... at the same time it differs sufficiently to justify the course which 

 Nilsson adopted in forming for its reception the new genus Eurynorhynclms, in which at present it stands alone. 



