234 
BROWN PHALAROPE. 
sion of synonymes, and a consequent confusion in his description, 
as the essential character in both authors being in nearly the same 
words, {rosti'o subulato, apice injiexo^ we are at no loss to infer 
that both descriptions have reference to the same bird ; and Ave are 
certain that the lobata of the twelfth edition of the former is precise- 
ly the same as that of the tenth edition, which cites for authority 
Edwardses 46 and 143 as before mentioned. 
I shall now give the short description of the bird figured in 
the plate, as I find it in Wilson^s note book. 
Bill black, slender, and one inch and three-eighths* in length; 
lores, front, crown, hind-head, and thence to the back, very pale 
ash, nearly white ; from the anterior angle of the eye a curving 
stripe of black descends along the neck for an inch or more; thence 
to the shoulders dark reddish brown, which also tinges the Avhite 
on the side of the neck next to it ; under parts white ; above dark 
olive ; wings and legs black. Size of the Turnstone. 
The specimen from Avhich the following description Avas taken 
Avas kindly communicated to me by my friend Mr. Titian R. Peale, 
Avhile it Avas yet in a recent state, and before it was prepared for 
the museum. It was this indiAudual which enabled me to ascertain 
the species figured in our plate. It was shot in the neighbourhood 
of Philadelphia, on the seventh of Ma)'-, 1818. 
Bill narrow, slender, flexible, subulate, of equal width ; nos- 
trils basal and linear; lobes of the toes thick, narrow, and but 
slightly scalloped ; outer toe connected to the middle one as far as 
the first joint, inner toe divided nearly to its base ; hind toe rest- 
ing on the ground. 
^ In the original the bill is said to be one inch and three quarters long, but that this is a 
mistake, we have only to measure the bill of the figure, drawn of half the size of nature, to be 
convinced of. Wilson always measured his bills from the tip to the angle of the mouth. Our 
figure, by this admeasurement, indicates a bill of precisely the length of that of Peak’s speci- 
men, which I have described in detail. 
