296 
SC0L0PACIDJ5. 
emulous strife for the possession of the little trifles that form 
their subsistence. I have drawn these birds near me by imitating 
their melancholy whistle. Wlien wounded^ they swim with suc- 
cess and apparent ease.'’^ 
I have remarked fully the half of a moderate-sized flock of 
these birds engaged at the same time performing their ablutions 
most deliberately in the flowing tide. 
The summer and winter plumage of the bird under considera- 
tion is so different that until about fifty years ago it was con- 
sidered in each state to be a distinct species, dunlin being the 
name applied to it in summer, and purre in winter. The following 
exceptions to the ordinary plumage at particular periods have been 
noted. So late as September 26, 1827, I remarked some in which 
the breast and belly retained the black summer garb, and on the 
12th of October, 1836, obtained a male bird in full winter dress : 
it was in this respect very different from about thirty killed at the 
same shot, all of them being in the half-dunhn and half-purre 
plumage common to the period of the year. 
When walking from Terracina towards Cape Circello — the fabled 
island of Circe — on the 7th of August, 1826, I met with a small 
flock of these birds; and on the 1st of June, 1841, saw five of 
them at what is believed to be the fountain Inopus, mentioned by 
Pliny, in the island of Delos. I possess a specimen of this bird, 
wliich flew on board a vessel at sea in 1834, in latitude 42° north, 
longitude 54° west. 
The Pectoral Sandpiper. — Tringa pectoralis, Bonap., has not 
been detected in Ireland, but, being an American species, we may yet 
hope to meet with it. Three individuals only — as particularly noticed 
in Mr. Yarrell’s work (vol. iii. p. 77, second edit.) — -have been obtained 
in Great Britain and the adjacent islets — one in Norfolk, another at 
the Scilly Islands (by D. W, Mitchell, Esq.), and a thh’d on the 
coast of Durham. 
