NOTES AND QUERIES. 187 



Bill. Wing. 



Rye Harbour (^ young, September... 1-37 4*75 



2 „ „ ... 1-23 4-7 



? „ „ ... 1-28 4-25 



Boston, Lincolnshire.. adult, October 1'27 4'37 



Vadso, Norway $ ,, June l-3;i 4-63 



Small Foem. 



Dungeness 2 young, September... 1*2 4-25 



2 „ „ ... 1-13 4-5 



Rye Harbour j" adult, ,, ... 1-1 4-5 



,, ^ „ August 1-1 4-15 



,, (? young, September... 1'18 4'5 



^ „ „ ... -98 4-5 



? adult, August 1-12 4*25 



,, J young, September... 1*09 4"36 



Boston, Lincolnshire.. October 1-14 4*5 



(? „ 1-12 4-0 



Hunstanton, Norfolk.. ^ young, ,, 1*16 4*5 



Vadso, Norway ^ adult, June 1-12 4*0 



J. L. BoNHOTE (Dittou Hall, Cambridge). 



Varieties of the Dunlin. — Seventeen or eighteen years ago the late 

 Mr. Blackett Greenwell, of Alston, gave me the skin of a very small Dunlin, 

 and told me that it was one of the Crossfell race, which I am sufl&ciently 

 familiar with in life, though I never shot a breeding Dunlin on the fells. 

 I have seen many hundreds of Dunlins on the Solway Firth in the breeding 

 season, and with a good glass examined them at their nests as closely as if 

 I had held them in my hand, but I never met with a bright-coloured Dunlin 

 on the marshes of the Solway Firth. The Solway Firth birds lack the 

 broad dorsal margins of chesnut which exist in the typical " fell" Dunlin, 

 and which are likewise characteristic of the large Dunlin, which Dr. R. B. 

 Sharpe has separated as Pelidna americana (Cat. Birds, vol. xxiv. p. 608). 

 I think that the breeding Dunlins of the Solway Firth would average rather 

 larger than the fell Dunlin. They have longer bills than my Crossfell 

 bird, which is the typical bright-coloured " drain Dunlin " of some east-coast 

 ornithologists. The Dunlins which swarm on the Solway Firth in the 

 latter part of August and September are principally birds of the larger 

 British race, possessed of far shorter bills than the typical American Dun- 

 lin, but easily distinguished from our small breeding Dunlins, I can match 

 the Dunlin, which Mr. Greenwell considered to be the typical fell-side 

 Dunlin, with two east-coast birds — one, a male obtained at Great Yarmouth 

 on May I2th, 1875 ; and the other, a female procured at Greatham on 

 May 28th, 1866. These three agree in having very short bills, and in 

 having the feathers of the upper parts broadly fringed with chesnut, a 

 feature which is not characteristic of the marsh-loving Dunlins of the Solway 

 Firth. Though at one time I had occasion to shoot a good many Dunlins, 



