382 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



dark ; lateral ones pale. Under plumage white ; breast and front of the neck streaked with 

 black. Bill and legs black. Wings and tail of the same length. The web between the 

 outer and middle toe reaches to the joint; that which connects the middle and inner toes 

 does not come so far. Total length, 5^- inches ; extent of wing, 10 inches ; weight, 14 

 drachms avoird. ; length of bill f of an inch *." 



[150.] 4. Tringa maritima. (Bruimich.) Purple Sandpiper. 



Genus, Tringa, Briss. 



Beccasseau violet {Tringa maritima), Temm. ii., p. 619. 



Tringa maritima (Purple Sandpiper), Sab. Greenl. Birds, p. 532 ; Suppl. Parry's First Voy., p. cci. 



Richardson, Parry's Second Voy., p. 354. Bonap., Syn., No. 252. 

 Siggee-aree-areeoo, Esquimaux. 



This bird breeds abundantly on Melville Peninsula and the shores of Hudson's 

 Bay. Its eggs are pyriform, 16i|- lines long, and an inch across at their greatest 

 breadth. Their colour is yellowish- grey, interspersed with small irregular spots 

 of pale hair-brown, crowded at the obtuse end, and rare at the other. 



DESCRIPTION 

 Of a male, killed before moulting, July 29, 1822, at Hudson's Bay. 



Colour. — Upper plumage mostly purplish black, bordered with ferruginous on the top of 

 the head and scapulars ; the latter tipped with brownish-white ; lateral tail feathers pale, 

 brownish-grey ; their shafts, narrow edgings, and the broad borders of the lateral pair of 

 tail coverts, white. Wings clove-brown ; the coverts fringed with grey ; the quills, after the 

 fifth, more and more broadly edged with white, the posterior lesser ones being almost entirely 

 white, as are also all the quill shafts. Neck, above and below, greyish ; belly and under 

 tail coverts white, all more or less broadly striped in the centres with blackish-brown. 

 Breast and flanks blackish-brown, broadly barred on the tips with greyish-white. Bill 

 blackish, tinged with yellow at the base. Legs yellowish. — Young birds have the dorsal 

 plumage edged with white, which changes, as the season advances, to reddish. 



Form. — Bill longer than the head ; ridge straight, narrow, and slightly wider at the tip ; 

 outline of the lower mandible sinuated near the point, giving a slight appearance of curvature 

 to the bill. Wings as long as the moderately rounded tail. Thighs feathered low down. 

 Tarsi stout ; toes bordered by a thick fold of skin. 



* Wilson states his bird to be six inches long and twelve in extent of wing, with a bill an inch long, and very 

 slightly bent ; but he adds, that individuals varied greatly in size, some being scarcely five inches and a half in length, 

 while others measured seven, and had bills upwards of an inch long. 



