584 A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Distribution. — British Isles. — Vagrant. About forty-seven Eng- 

 land, three Scotland, three Ireland, chiefly autumn, occasional 

 spring. England. — Northumberland (two), Durham (two), Yorks. 

 (five), Norfolk (nine), Suffolk (five or six), Kent (two), Sussex (seven), 

 Devon (two), Cornwall (three), Scilly Isles (ten), Cumberland (one). 

 Scotland. — Aberdeen, Argyll and Orkneys, one each. Ireland. — 

 Portumna (Gal way) (one), Belmullet (Mayo) (two). 



Distribution. — Abroad. — Breeds on arctic shores of western N. 

 America and eastern Siberia. Winters in S. America, from Peru and 

 Bolivia to Chile, Argentina and Patagonia. Pare or casual in Japan, 

 Greenland, Hawaiian Islands. 



CALIDRIS ACUMINATA 



396. Calidris acuminata (Horsf.)*— THE SIBERIAN PECTORAL 

 SANDPIPER. 



Totanus acuminatus Horsfield, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, xm, p. 192 



(1821 — -Java, winter-visitor). 



Tringa acuminata (Horsfield), Saunders, pp. 579 and 580. 



Erolia maculata acuminata (Horsf.), Hand-List (1912), p. 176. 



Description. — Adult male and female. Winter. — Crown black- 

 brown, feathers edged sandy-brown ; nape same but streaks 

 narrower and edges light buff ; mantle and scapulars black-brown, 

 feathers edged ash-brown ; back, rump and central upper tail- 

 coverts black-brown, feathers edged tawny ; sides of back, rump 

 and lateral tail-coverts white, latter with median dusky markings ; 

 eye -stripe white streaked dusky ; ear -coverts dusky streaked sepia ; 

 cheeks and sides of neck buff -white, narrowly streaked sepia ; chin 

 and upper -throat white ; lower -throat and breast spotted dusky- 

 brown most pronounced at sides and more or less suffused buff ; 

 flanks white suffused fulvous ; under tail-coverts white streaked 

 sepia ; remaining under -parts white ; tail-feathers ash-brown 

 edged white, central pair sepia edged pink-cinnamon ; primaries 

 sepia, shafts more or less white ; secondaries sepia tipped white, 

 paler on inner webs, innermost as mantle ; primary-coverts dark 

 sepia edged white ; greater coverts ash-brown tipped white ; 

 median and lesser coverts ash-brown with dark shafts and whitish 

 edges. This plumage is acquired by complete moult commencing 

 with body -feathers in autumn, remiges and rectrices not being 

 renewed till winter or early spring ; several Peb. and March 

 examples were moulting remiges and acquiring summer feathers ; 

 (one or two moulting remiges in Oct. were probably birds of 

 previous year). Summer. — The body-feathers (apparently not all 

 scapulars nor all feathers of back and rump), sometimes tail, inner- 

 most secondaries and coverts, usually some median and lesser 



* American authors (A.O.U. Checklist, 3rded., 1910, p. 113) have adopted 

 Latham's name Tringa aurita (Latham, Ind. Orn. Suppl., p. lxvi, ex Gen. 

 Syn. Suppl., 11, p. 314) but without reason, as the description disagrees almost 

 entirely with that of the present species. — E.H. 



