NOTES AND QUERIES, 



357 



Alaska it is met with in autumn. Mr. Seebohm states that examples have 

 been obtained in the middle of June in the valley of the Argun River; it 

 has been observed on Behring's Island during the autumn migration. It 

 passes along the coasts of Japan and China, and has been frequently obtained 

 on many of the islands of the Malay Archipelago from Java to New Guinea. 

 It winters in Australia and New Zealand. I cannot find that it has 

 previously been recognised in Europe. The occurrence of this species in 

 England is certainly of considerable interest, and Mr. Thomas Ground, of 

 Moseley, near Birmingham, who was fortunate enough to shoot it, has 

 favoured me with the following particulars of his meeting with it : — " I only 

 saw the bird just as it alighted, and it did so in perfect silence ; it then 

 remained quite still, as if examining the ground ; the other birds all took a 

 short run. I fired on the instant, and it fell dead. A Ringed Plover 

 also fell to my friend's shot at the same moment. The precise locality was 

 on the Breyden mud-flats at the end nearest Yarmouth, on one of the flats 

 which are left dry, or nearly so, at high tide. The date was the 29th 

 August. The tide had been running out about an hour. Had I recognised 

 the bird as a stranger, I should have taken care to have given it an oppor- 

 tunity of displaying itself." It is curious that this bird should have been 

 killed in the same locality as the first example of its New World ally, the 

 Pectoral Sandpiper, which was met with on the 17th October, 1830. 

 Mr. Ground's bird proved to be a female by dissection, probably fully adult; 

 the legs when fresh were olive-green, the inside of the mouth flesh- 

 coloured. The following comparative measurements of three of these 

 birds, — No. 1 from "Australia," No. 2 from "New South Wales," and 

 No. 3, the recently-killed Breydon specimen, — will show that individuals of 

 this species, like the Pectoral Sandpiper, differ considerably in size : — 



Bill along the culmen 



Wing from carpal joint to end of first ) 

 primary (the longest) j 



Tarsus 



Middle toe and claw 



25 mm. 



22 mm. 



135 „ 



137 „ 



32 „ 



30 „ 



30 „ 



28 „ 



129 „ 



28 „ 

 28 „ 



On comparing the principal measurements of the above three specimens of 

 this bird with the average of twelve examples of T. maculata, I find the 

 wing from the flexure to the end of the first quill-feather is much shorter 

 (133-6 mm. against 138*58 mm.); the bill also is much shorter (23-6 mm. 

 against 27*83 mm.); on the other hand, the tarsus is longer (30 mm. 

 against 28*6 mm. in T. maculata), as is also the middle toe and claw 

 (28*6 mm. against 27 mm.). As this species so closely resembles the 



