•TEgialitis meloda circumcincta on the Atlantic Coast. — During a recent 
hurried visit to the Museum of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, N. J., 
I noticed, in looking over the beautifully mounted Scott collection of birds, 
two specimens, male and female, in adult spring plumage, of the Belted 
Piping Plover, taken by Mr. W. E. D. Scott at Long Beach, Barnegat Bay, 
N. J., in April, 1877. On referring to the series of skins two other speci- 
mens were found, taken at the same time and place as the above, in which 
the pectoral band was complete but narrow The specimens first men- 
tioned above have the pectoral band broad and continuous — typical rep- 
resentatives of var. circumcincta. 
In the same collection I found also two skins of typical circumcincta 
taken by Mr. Nathan Clifford Brown, on, the Scarborough marshes, near 
Portland, Maine,' respectively May 17, 1878, and May 2, 1880. Thus in a 
series of thirteen specimens of the Piping Plover taken on the Atlantic 
Coast, contained in the Museum of Princeton College, four were typical 
of var. circumcincta. These specimens appear to have been unrecorded 
till briefly mentioned by me in the ‘Additions and Corrections’ to my ‘Re- 
vised List of the Birds of Massachusetts,’ recently published in the ‘Bulletin 
of the American Museum of Natural History,’ Vol. I, No. 7. 
Mr. Ridgway and Dr. Brewer (Water Birds of North America, Vol. I, 
18S4, pp. 161, 163) mention this variety as occasionally occurring along 
the Atlantic Coast, though mainly restricted to the Missouri River region. 
Mr. Cory (A Naturalist in the Magdalen Islands, 1878, p. 61) , however, 
has recorded it as “abundant” in the Magdalen Islands, and judged it 
“possible that its range may extend to Anticosti , or even to Labrador ,” 
he believing that many of the migrants of this species he saw at the Mag- 
dalens came from further north. — J. A. Allen, Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 
New York City. 
Auk, 3, Oct., 1889. p. 
Note on /Egialitis meloda circumcincta. — In looking over the back 
numbers of ‘The Auk’ which have accumulated on my desk during my 
late long absence from America, I find a notice* of the occurrence of 
AEgialitis meloda circumcincta on the Atlantic coast, by Mr. J. A. Allen. 
Amongst other examples of this variety, Mr. Allen writes that he has 
examined “two skins of typical circumcincta" taken by myself in Scarbo- 
rough, Maine. 
It is proper for me to state that I had never made mention of these 
examples, for the reason that I doubted the validity of the so-called 
‘inland form.' The evidence of such Maine birds as have fallen into my 
hands is certainly against it. I cannot remember that I have ever seen 
more than three specimens, taken on the coast of Maine, in which the 
neck band was wholly interrupted in front; and while the band, when 
complete, is not always so broad as in the skins examined by Mr. Allen, it is 
often so. The two forms distinctly intergrade in Maine. According to 
Mr. Allen, t they come very near intergradation in New Jersey. One 
cannot help believing, from the numerbus instances, published and unpub- 
lished, of the occurrence of circumcincta on the Atlantic coast, that the 
same thing may be true of other localities. All this, of course, is not 
enough to deprive the belted bird of its name ; but it is perhaps enough to 
render its right to a separate name doubtful. — Nathan Cliffo rd Brown, _ 
Portland , Maine. Auk.YI. J an-. 10®8.P. ^ *voi. m. p- 482 - 
fl- c. 
