426 SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER. 



shellfish which supplies so many multitudes of the plover and 

 sandpiper tribes. 



I should not be surprised if the present species turn out 

 hereafter to be the sanderling itself in a different dress. Of 

 many scores which I examined, scarce two were alike ; in 

 some, the plumage of the back was almost plain ; in others, the 

 black plumage was just shooting out. This was in the month 

 of October. Naturalists, however, have considered it as a 

 .separate species ; but have given us no further particulars 

 than that, " in Hudson's Bay it is known by the name of 

 Mistchaychekiskaweshish," * — a piece of information certainly 

 very instructive. 



The ruddy plover is eight inches long, and fifteen in extent; 

 the bill is black, an inch long, and straight ; sides of the neck 

 and whole upper parts, speckled largely with white, black, and 

 ferruginous ; the feathers being centred with black, tipt with 

 white, and edged with ferruginous, giving the bird a very 

 motley appearance ; belly and vent, pure white ; wing-quills, 

 black, crossed with a band of white ; lesser coverts, whitish, 

 centred with pale olive, the first two or three rows black ; two 

 middle tail-feathers, black ; the rest, pale cinereous, edged 

 with white ; legs and feet, black ; toes, bordered with a very 

 narrow membrane. On dissection, both males and females 

 varied in their colours and markings. 



SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER. {Tringa semipalmata.) 



PLATE LXIIL— Fig. 4. 



PeaWs Museum, No. 4025. 



TRIXGA SEMIPALMA TA. —Wilson. 



Tringa semipalmata, Bonap. Synop. p. 316. 



This is one of the smallest of its tribe, and seems to have 



been entirely overlooked, or confounded with another which it 



much resembles {Tringa jpusilla), and with whom it is often 



found associated. 



* Latham. 



