60 
WILSON’S PHALAROPE. 
The description which accompanied it was as defective as the 
figure, the author’s pencil notes having been found partly illegible, 
and it was marked by him as a Tringa. In a second and much 
improved edition, which it has pleased the author to call an 
original work, though the plates are identical with the former, 
Mr. Ord s description and personal observations are very correct 
and ingenious, but the name and synonymes are altogether mis¬ 
applied, through his mistaking it for the Phalaropus hyperboreus. 
In a paper published in the Annals of the Lyceum of New York, 
I availed myself of the first opportunity that offered to explain the 
confusion respecting the three species, and finally distinguished 
among them three groups which were exemplified in my Synopsis. 
Mr. Sabine was not aware when he applied to this bird the 
name of our predecessor, that he was performing not merely an 
act ofi courtesy and respect, but one of justice also towards its 
first discoverer. It was only by actual inspection of the specimen 
examined by Wilson, and preserved in the Albany Museum, that 
we could identify the species, and it does not appear surprising to 
us that some who have not thus verified the fact for themselves 
should still express doubts, as Baron Cuvier has done by impli¬ 
cation in the new edition of his Pegne Jlnimal. AVe ourselves, 
when we first procured the bird, had not the least suspicion 
that it was contained in Wilson’s work. Every one will therefore 
be sensible of the propriety of publishing a new figure, more 
needed in fact in this case than if the species had been new. 
The description in Sabine’s Appendix to Franklin’s Expedition 
could not however be misunderstood, and Temminck and Vieillot 
by its perusal would have spared this bird two synonymes, as they 
simultaneously figured and described it in their respective works 
under the different names quoted in our list, though Vieillot 
perceived it to be the species intended by Wilson. The 
authors of the Illustrations of Ornithology did not recognise in 
