98 WILSON’S PLOVER. 
the authority for Tringa fulicaria is Edwards's red coot-footed 
tringa, pl. 142, and that alone, for it does not appear that 
Linneeus had seen the bird. The circumstance of the change 
of the generic appellation can in nowise affect the specific 
name; the present improved state of the science requires the 
former, justice demands that the latter should be preserved. 
In this work I have preserved it; and I flatter myself that 
this humble attempt to vindicate the rights of Linnzeus will 
be approved by all those who love the sciences of which he was 
so illustrious a promoter. 
WILSON’S PLOVER. (Charadrius Wilsonius.) 
PLATE LXXIII.—Fie. 5. 
Peale’s Museum, No. 4159, male ; 4160, female. 
CHARADRIUS WILSONIUS.—Orp. 
Charadrius Wilsonius, Bonap. Synop. p. 296.—Nomenclature, No. 221. 
Or this neat and prettily marked species I can find no account, 
and have concluded that it has hitherto escaped the eye of the 
naturalist. The bird from which this description was taken 
was shot the 13th of May 1813, on the shore of Cape Island, 
New Jersey, by my ever-regretted friend ; and I have honoured 
it with his name.* It was a male, and was accompanied by 
Synonyma, and the latter being that which received the finishing hand 
of its author. In the United States, Linneeus is principally known 
through two editors—Gmelin, whose thirteenth edition of the “ Systema 
Nature” has involved the whole science in almost inextricable confusion ; 
and Turton, whose English translation of Gmelin is a disgrace to science 
and letters. All writers on zoology and botany should possess Linnzeus’s 
tenth and twelfth editions ; they will be found to be of indispensable 
use in tracing synonyms and fixing nomenclature, 
* Bonaparte thus observes in his ‘‘ Nomenclature :”—“ A very rare 
species, established by the editor (Mr Ord), and dedicated to Wilson. It 
is the first homage of the kind paid to the memory of this great and 
lamented self-taught naturalist. The descriptions of several species in 
the works of former authors come more or less near to it, but after a 
careful investigation we are satisfied that it is new.”—Eb. 
