MEMORANDA ON THE PURPLE SANDPIPER.
35
authorities as Dresser, Salvin and Saunders had used this
specific name of Linnaeus—the same having been adopted by
the Ibis Committee in their List of British Birds (1883).
Seebohm,4 however, has shown that the Tringa striata Linn.
(1766) in reality applied to the Redshank (as admitted by
Dresser), and not to the Purple Sandpiper, T. maritima Brunn.
(1764). Harting ostensibly supports the interpretation of the
preceding writer as to the specific name to be adopted.
Moreover, to clench the argument, a recent interview with
Mr. Howard Saunders enables me to say that he acknow-
ledges the justice of Seebohm's criticism, and his intention in
future to abide by the specific name T. maritima for the bird in
question.
Food.—Concerning their aliment, my examination revealed
that all three birds had been feeding partly on seaweed, at least
there was some present in a finely comminuted state. Mingled
with this were particles of sand and small fragments of shells,
cockles being easily identified. In one of their gizzards was a
tiny live example of the estuarine gastropod, Hydrobia ulvae.5 In
each case there also was present more or less of a pulpy,
gelatinous substance, apparently derivative of shellfish, rather
than of a crustacean character. No insect remains were
observed; nor of any of the hard parts of crustaceans, either
integumentary or appendages. Various naturalists mention the
food of the Purple Sandpiper as consisting of juvenile shrimps,
sand hoppers, minute crabs, marine insects, sand worms, and
soft parts of several kinds of shell fish. The latter apparently
formed the bulk of the pappy material in the stomachs of the
Canvey birds. It comes to be a question in how much sea-weed
per se is their nutrient material or only as extra pabulum swallowed
along with their pickings on it for the crustaceans and diminutive
shell fish thereon. My own impression is, from the delicate
probing character of their beak, and form and structure of
mouth parts and gullet, that in the animal substance and not in
algal material lies what they search for, either on sandy shore or
rocky sea margin.
Of course, opinions thereon may differ. Saxby,6 for instance,
4 Hist. Brit. Birth III. (1885), p. 192, footnote. See also Harting's remarks Handb.
Brit. Birds (1901) P. 189, footnote.
5 Otherwise the Paludestrina ulvae of Pennant. The specimen was identified by Mr.
-Edgar Smith, of Brit. Museum.
6 Birds of Shetland, 1874, p. 212.