(BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER.)
+Tryngites rufescens+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 146; _Durnford,
Ibis_, 1877, p. 200 (Buenos Ayres); _Baird, Brew., et Ridgw.
Water-B. N. A._ i. p. 305; _Saunders, Yarrell's Birds_, iii. p.
435. +Tringa rufescens+, _Seebohm, Plovers_, p. 446.
_Description._--Above dark brownish black, each feather widely edged
with buff; wings blackish, narrowly tipped with white, the inner
half of the inner web whitish reticulated with black; tail blackish,
the outer rectrices lighter, each with subterminal black crescent
and white terminal edge: beneath buff, darker on the throat and
breast, and edged with whitish, lighter on flanks and belly; under
primary-coverts barred and reticulated with black, like the inner
web of the primaries, and forming a marked contrast with the rest of
the under surface of the wing, which is pure white: whole length 7·7
inches, wing 5·3, tail 2·5. _Female_ similar.
_Hab._ Arctic America, descending south to Buenos Ayres in winter.
This species is also an annual visitor to the pampas from the Arctic
regions where it breeds. It begins to arrive, usually in small bodies,
early in the month of October; and during the summer is seldom met with
in flocks of any size on the pampas, but is usually seen on the dry
open ground associating in small numbers with the Golden Plover, the
Whimbrel, and other northern species. I, however, think it probable that
it travels further south than its fellow-migrants from North America,
and has its principal feeding-grounds somewhere in the interior of
Patagonia; also that its northern journey takes place later than that of
other species. In some seasons I have observed these birds in April
and May, in flocks of two to five hundred, travelling north, the birds
flying very low, flock succeeding flock at intervals of about fifteen
minutes, and continuing to pass for several days.