644 AVES— CURLEW. ..SANDPIPER. 



hatched are black, soon after gray, then white, and gradually assume then 

 red color ; at the third year, their plumage is complete. They have fie- 

 qaently been domesticated. 



THE CURLEW 



Is a well known bird, which in winter frequents seacoasts and marshes, 

 feeding chiefly on frogs and marine insects. In summer they retire to the 

 mountainous and unfrequented parts to breed. Their flesh is rank and fishy. 

 Curlews differ much in size, some weighing thirty-seven ounces, and some 

 not twenty-two ; the length of the largest is twenty-five inches. Its bill is 

 long, black, and much curved. The upper parts of the plumage are of a pale 

 tiown; the breast and belly white, marked with dark oblong spots. The 

 female is somewhat larger than the male, which is commonly called the 

 jack curlew, and the spots with which she is covered almost all over are 

 more inclining to a red. Latham enumerates about eleven species, foreign 

 and domestic. 



THE SANDPIPER. 2 



Of the sandpiper, properly so called, there are about twelve species known 

 in Europe, from the size of a thrush to that of a hedge-sparrow. The com- 



1 Numenivs arquata, Lath. The genus Numenvus has the bill long, slender, arched, 

 compressed, point hard, and slightly obtuse ; upper mandible projecting beyond the lower, 

 rounded at the bud, and channelled through three fourths of its length; nostrils lateral, 

 linear and pierced in the furrow ; face feathered ; legs slender ; naked above the knee ; 

 the three fore toes united by a membrane to the first joint ; the hinder articulated to the 

 tarsus, and touching the ground. 



*The genus Tringa or sandpiper, has the bill middle-sized or long, very slightly arched, 

 curved or straight at the tip, soft and flexible through its whole length, compressed at the 

 base, depressed, dilated, and obtuse at the point; both mandibles channelled to near their 

 extremities ; nostrils lateral, conical in the membrane which covers the nasal furrow; legs 

 slender, naked above the knee ; the three fore toes quite divided; but in a few species the 



middle and outer toe are connected by a membrane ; the hinder articulated to the tarsus. 



s qu 

 ; til 



