128 WADING BIRDS. 



passed the season in celibacy, lingering behind the migrating 

 flocks ; a habit which appears to be more or less common 

 with many other of the aquatic and wading birds. 



The Knot, or Ash Colored Sandpiper is usually about 10 inches 

 long, and 20 in alar extent, though specimens occur from 9 to 

 11 inches in length ! In the winter plumage, the throat, and middle 

 of the belly, is white. Front, superciliary stripe, sides and fore part 

 of the neck, breast and flanks also white, but varied with small lon- 

 gitudinal brown spots, and transverse zigzag ashy -brown bands. 

 Head, neck, back, and scapulars pale ash, with the shafts of the 

 feathers liver-brown. Rump, and upper tail coverts white, with 

 black curving and zigzag bars. Wing coverts cinereous, edged with 

 white, and the shafts dusky. Tail feathers pale cinereous, fringed 

 with white. Bill, legs and feet, black, with a tint of olive. Irids 

 hazel. The bill in the adult, 1 inch 3 lines. In the young 1 inch 1 

 line. — Tringa cincrea, grisea, eicanutus, Gmel. Syst. i. p. 673. 

 Lath. Ind. ii. p. 733. La mauhhche Grise. Buff. Ois. vii. p. 531. 

 PI. Enlum, 366. 



In the young of the year, the ash of the back and scapulars is very 

 dark, and all the feathers terminating in two very narrow bordering 

 crescents, or curving edges, the upper of which is dusky and the 

 lower white. The head longitudinally, and cleared spotted with 

 dusky-brown. A faint tint of rufous white upon the lower part of 

 the throat and breast ; a dusky mottled band from the eye to the 

 bill. Bill shorter and paler than in the adult. — Tringa cinerea, 

 Wilson. 



In the summer plumage, the wide superciliary stripe, throat, sides 

 and fore part of the neck, breast, belly, and flanks bright ferruginous. 

 Nape rufous, with small longitudinal spots. Summit of the head, 

 back, and scapulars, black, the feathers bordered with bright rufous ; 

 oval spots of the same upon the scapulars. Abdomen white, with 

 touches of rufous, and spots of dusky brown. Upper tail coverts 

 white, with black curving bars and rufous spots. Tail feathers 

 blackish-ash, fringed with white. — Tringa islandica, Gmel. Lath. 

 T. ferruginea, Meyer. T. rufa, Wilson. 



The young, in the first moult of the spring, have all the bright fer- 

 ruginous parts of the old, of a pale rufous ; the summit of the head 

 and nape yellowish-grey, with dusky-brown spots. There is a 

 mixture of blackish and pale rufous upon the top of the back ; the 



