Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/117

Rh several specimens of both larger and smaller races in the writer's collection:—

In the foregoing lists it will be at once noticed that all the large birds are from the sea-coast; and, oddly enough, among several specimens before us, collected on the North of England "fells" during the summer-time, not a single example of the larger billed bird is to be found, nor can we recollect having seen any but the smaller race upon these "fells." The question then seems to resolve itself, first of all, into a distributional one as to the breeding of the two forms; that point settled, we shall surely come one step nearer to a satisfactory basis upon which to establish the validity or otherwise of Tringa schinzii as a species. The writer has now been fortunate in discovering what may well be looked upon as "headquarters" for Yorkshire breeding Dunlin, and it is to be hoped that during the coming season careful observation can be made upon a large number of nesting birds.

Meantime the evidence of two well-known north-country ornithologists must now be given as bearing in an important manner upon the subject at issue.

In a letter, dated Jan. 30th, 1899, Mr. Harvie-Brown writes as follows:—"The short, straight-billed form breeds very abundantly in the Outer Hebrides; also in Tiree and elsewhere in the west and north, where I have taken their eggs. Here also, within five miles of this house (Larbert, Stirlingshire), in two