WILSON’S PHALAROPE. Ab 3 
that offered to explain the confusion respecting the three 
species, and finally distinguished among them three groups, 
which were exemplified in my Synopsis. 
Mr Sabine was not aware, when he applied to this bird the 
name of our predecessor, that he was performing not merely 
an act of courtesy and respect, but one of justice also towards 
its first discoverer. It was only by actual inspection of the 
specimen examined by Wilson, and preserved in the Albany 
Museum, that we could identify the species, and it does not 
appear surprising to us that some who have not thus verified 
the fact for themselves should still express doubts, as Baron 
Cuvier has done by implication in the new edition of his “ Regne 
Animal.” We ourselves, when we first procured the bird, had 
not the least suspicion that it was contained in Wilson’s work. 
Every one will therefore be sensible of the propriety of pub- 
lishing a new figure, more needed, in fact, in this case than if 
the species had been new. The description in Sabine’s Appen- 
dix to Franklin’s Expedition could not, however, be misunder- 
stood, and T’emminck and Vieillot by its perusal would have 
spared this bird two synonyms, as they simultaneously figured 
and described it in their respective works under the different 
names quoted in our list, though Vieillot perceived it to be the 
species intended by Wilson. ‘The authors of the “‘ Illustrations 
of Ornithology ” did not recognise in their Lobipes incanus the 
young of this, which is not much to be wondered at; but it 
is rather extraordinary that writers so justly scrupulous about 
the rights of priority should adopt, though greatly posterior, 
Temminck’s name instead of Sabine’s, thus slighting over one 
of the best of the few positive zoological labours of their own 
countrymen, and after it had been already sanctioned by 
strangers. 
That the Lobipes incanus is the young of this species, which 
any one familiar with the changes of plumage of the phalaropes 
might have suspected, will, it is hoped, be placed beyond future 
question by the figure we now give also of it. 
If the bill only were considered, this species might with 
