Brewer.] 256 [October 3, 



Mr. Henry D. Morse, of this city, an experienced gunner and 

 observing sportsman, has occasionally met -with single specimens of 

 this species in Scarboro, Maine, but has observed none anywhere else, 

 but more recently one or two others have been secured in the neigh- 

 borhood of Portland. 



The only specimen of which I have any knowledge, taken on Cape 

 Cod, is a single individual shot by Mr. John Murdock, at Pochet 

 Island, Orleans, on the south side of the Cape, in August, 1869. 

 It was in a mixed flock of G. flavipes and Macroramphus griseus, but 

 unfortunately was not preserved, so that its identity, though probable, 

 is not so certain as could be wished. 



These data are all too meagre to be accepted as conclusive of any- 

 thing. They are chiefly negative, but so far as they go they indicate 

 that this species is not a regular migrant, in the proper acceptance of 

 the term. It does not occur along our coast in the spring, and is only 

 occasionally and very irregularly met with on a small portion of our 

 extended coast in the fall, and even then it comes more as an uncom- 

 mon straggler than like a bird fulfilling its normal migrations. In only 

 one or two instances has it been known to come in flocks, or even in 

 family groups, but chiefly appears as if wandering off in company 

 with non-kindred species. There are only one or two instances 

 of its occurrence east of Portsmouth, none east of Portland, and 

 none west of New Bedford, on the coasts of Rhode Island and Con- 

 necticut. The few that straggle along the western coast of Maine, 

 that of New Hampshire and of northern Massachusetts, evidently 

 come from the north and not the east, in a due-south course, and 

 probably pursue this course, leaving the shore at Buzzard's Bay, over 

 the open sea. In this southern course its earliest recorded capture 

 is July 24th, and its latest Sept. 29th. This remarkable variation as 

 to the period of its appearance, is alone demonstrative evidence of 

 the great irregularity of its movements, wholly at variance with the 

 common, idea of a regular migrating bird. 



The thanks of the Society were voted to Mr. Mackay for 

 the specimen of Sandpiper referred to. 



