180 WADING BIRDS. 



The tongue long, filiform and acute. The body compressed and 

 very fleshy. The sexes, with the young, similar in their plumage, 

 but the female a little larger. They moult twice in the year, and 

 the tints are a little more brilliant in summer. 



These birds, nearly nocturnal in their habits and time of feeding, 

 live usually in woods, or in bogs and marshes, and feed on worms, 

 insects, and other small animals, which they seek in mud or bog- 

 moss, by probing down with the sensitive bill, whose extremity pos- 

 sesses, in consequence of its peculiar nervous netting, all the appro- 

 priate sense of touch; when this resource fails, and also in common, 

 they seek their prey by turning over the decayed leaves of the forest, 

 under which it may happen to lurk. When pursued they keep 

 close to the ground, and have the infatuation to think that by hiding 

 their head in their feathers, they are concealed from their enemies ; 

 when close chased, or suddenly flushed, they start on wing and fly 

 out with great rapidity. The flesh is considered superior to almost 

 any other game. — The species, composed of two or more subgenera, 

 are spread all over the world, but they generally prefer cold coun- 

 tries for their residence, in which, if temperate, they are often resi- 

 dent the whole year, in other climates they are necessarily migratory 

 from the nature of their food. They nest on the ground ; and the 

 eggs are about four. 



Subgenus. — MacpwORAMphus, (Leacli.) 



With the eye not far back in the head ; the legs long ; the bare 

 space above the knee extensive ; tarsus longer than the middle toe ; 

 the outer toe connected to the middle one by a membrane as far as 

 the first joint, the inner toe also connected by a very short web ; 

 the hind toe nail acute and projecting over the toe. Tail of 12 fea- 

 thers. 



These birds, different from the true Snipes, vary their plumage 

 according to age and season, in the manner of the Sandpipers. 

 Unlike the Snipes, they are also gregarious, keeping and fly- 

 ing in flocks, and generally inhabit open marshy grounds in the 

 vicinity of the sea ; they fly high and with rapidity, and have not 

 the habit of hiding in the herbage. Of this section, or rather true 

 genus, there is but a single species. It appears to connect Scolopax 



