DUNLIN. 
145 
round the thicker end, and marked with a few small spots of the same 
colour on the smaller end. Not uncommon on the Devonshire and 
Cornwall coast ; frequent also on the coast of Wales. Is also found in 
Greenland, Iceland, and Scandinavia, and on the Siberian Alps, as well 
as at Hudson’s Bay. 
An individual of this species had the whole under parts from the 
neck nearly black ; another, killed in October, had the upper parts of 
the back and scapulars chiefly cinereous, dusky on the shafts, mixed 
with a few feathers richly margined with rufous ; head and neck pale, 
streaked with brown, and nearly destitute of the usual rufous. We 
learn from the Linnsean Transactions, v. viii. p. 266, that the nest is 
composed of dried tufts of sprit, {Juncus squavosus^ and the eggs four, 
smoky white, irregularly marked with light and dark-brown l)lotches, 
rather more distant at the smaller end. 
* The circumstance of the Purre and Dunlin appearing and disappear- 
ing in constant alternation, added to their general form, their corres- 
ponding weight and measurement, the exact similitude of their bill and 
legs, and their cuneiform shape and colour of the tail, have long induced 
us to conjecture that they were actually the same species ; and that in 
fact the black spots on the breast, and other variations in colour ob- 
served in the Dunlin, were not more extraordinary than those changes 
incidental to the breeding season, which are noticed in the black neck 
and breast of the golden and grey plovers. This suspicion was not a 
little strengthened by the inquiries of several of our scientific friends, 
who had found these birds approach so near in plumage, that they 
required a clearer definition of the two species. In order, therefore, to 
obtain the best information, we procured as many of these birds as pos- 
sible, about that period of the seasons when the changes of plumage are 
known to take place, the early part of both the spring and autumn ; by 
so doing we have had the satisfaction to succeed in obtaining these sup- 
posed species in the intermediate changes of plumage, so as to leave no 
doubt that they are one and the same. 
The plumage of one shot early in October, was a mixture of the two 
birds, but we could not venture to annihilate one species so long esta- 
blished unimpeached, until further corresponding evidence had been 
obtained. Other specimens, however, partaking more of the Purre, 
were killed in the early part of December; these had more or less 
black feathers, margined with rufous, especially on the body near the 
junction of the wing, and a few intermediate feathers in the scapulars 
that evidently bespoke the Dunlin, although there were no distinct 
spots on the belly. From what we have lately observed, the progress 
of change in plumage is similar to what has been noticed in all other 
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