NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 
193 
the other having their bases and tips brownish. The secondaries and greater 
coverts are nearly as dark as the primaries, both conspicuously tipped and 
their inner vanes edged with white. The axillary feathers are white; and, in 
the closed wing, a portion of the under coverts form a large triangular patch 
of white near the shoulder. 
A specimen from the west coast presents a very remarkable pattern of color- 
ation. It has not the least trace of any reddish or chestnut, being everywhere 
of a uniform dark ash, each feather with a central spot or shaft line of dusky. 
The rump is scarcely darker than the back. The breast is merely a lighter 
shade of the color of the back, and the streaks are so indistinct as to be 
scarcely perceptible. This is very different from the plumage of the young 
given above ; and it is not impossible that the bird is of a species distinct from 
the one now under consideration. The general pattern, however, is very simi- 
lar to that presented by the young Bairdii ; and in the absence of any differ- 
ences of size or proportions, and with but a single specimen before me, I am 
unwilling to risk adding another name to the already overburdened synonymy 
of the smaller Sandpipers. In another specimen, also from the west coast, the 
prevailing color of the upper parts is almost black, the feathers, except on the 
scapulars, being scarcely edged with reddish ; and the streaks on the breast 
are very numerous and dark, upon a nearly white ground. This state of 
plumage is exactly parallel with that sometimes exhibited by undoubted 
specimens of A. maculaia. 
The relationship of this species to the European A. minuta are close ; and, 
with but a single very defective and immature skin of the latter before me, I 
cannot well state the points of difference ; but all authors are agreed upon the 
specific distinction of the two. As far as I can judge, A. minuta is considerably 
the largest, (wing 3-85 instead of about 3-4,) and the proportions of the pri- 
maries are quite different from those of A . minutilla. A. minuta has been given 
as an inhabitant of North America by both Swainson and Nuttall, but probably 
upon insufficient or erroneous data. 
With regard to this little Sandpiper, there has been considerable confusion 
among authors, arising partly from the great similarity it bears to some other 
species, such as the Tringa minuta and Temminckii , and partly from a misinterpre- 
tation of the T. pusilla * of Linnaeus. This name was applied by Wilson, in 181$, 
to the species now under consideration, and is adopted by Swainson, Audubon 
and some other writers. The T. pusilla of Nuttall (“stint or little sandpiper”) 
is l 7 . Temminckii , Leisl., and is erroneously given as an inhabitant of North 
America. What “Le tringa beco, T. pusilla , Lath.,” of Vieillot refers to is a 
little doubtful. The author quotes plate 37, fig. 4 of Wilson’s Ornithology, 
which is T. pusilla , Wils. ( T . Wilsoni , Nutt. ;) and also cites the “ petite Alouette- 
de-mer de Saint-Domingue ” of Brisson, which is T. semipalmata, Wils. ( Ereu - 
netes pusillus, Cass.) The description, however, especially with reference to 
the stout bill, traces of reddish on the under parts, &c., seems rather to point 
to the latter, which it may be best to consider it, even though no mention is 
*For convenience of reference, the four species to which the name pusilla was origi- 
nally applied, with their more prominent synonyms, are here inserted. 
Tringa pusilla , Linnaeus = Ereunetes petrijicatus , Illiger = Tringa semipalmata, 
Wilson = Heteropoda semip., Nuttall, and Hemipalama semip., Bonaparte = Ereunetes 
pusillus , Cassin; ( Heteropoda mauri , Bonaparte, and Hemipalama minor, Gundlach, are 
synonymous ?) 
Tringa pusilla, Meyer = Tringa minuta, Leisler = Actodromas minuta, Kaup. 
Tringa pusilla, Bechstein = Tringa Temminckii, Leisler = Actodromas Temminckii, 
Bonaparte. 
Tringa pusilla, Wilson = Tringa minutilla, Vieillot = Tringa Wilsonii Nuttall = 
Actodromas Wilsoni, Cassin — Actodromas minutilla of the present article. 
It will thus be seen that Tringa pusilla of Linnaeus, Meyer, Bechstein and Wilson 
refers to four distinct species. 
1861.] 
14 
