262 LIMOSA RUFA. 



blunt, and grooved. The mouth is very narrow, measuring 

 only four-twelfths and a quarter across. The palate is flat, 

 with two rows of papillae on each side of the linear-oblong 

 posterior nasal aperture, and three anterior rows. The 

 tongue is two inches and eleven-twelfths long, emarginate 

 and papillate at the base, fleshy for half-an-inch, then 

 horny, trigonal, grooved above, tapering to a fine point. 

 The oesophagus is seven and a half inches long, narrow, 

 having a nearly uniform width of four-twelfths ; the proven- 

 triculus oblong. The stomach is an elliptical compressed 

 gizzard, an inch and four-twelfths in length, an inch and 

 one-twelfth in breadth, with the muscles rather large and 

 distinct; the epithelium dense, flesh-coloured, and longi- 

 tudinally rugous. The intestine, forty-two inches long, varies 

 from three-and-a-half-twelfths to two-twelfths in width; the 

 cceca half-an-inch long, a twelfth-and-a-half in breadth, and 

 two inches from the extremity. 



The eyes are small, their aperture measuring three- 

 twelfths across ; that of the ear four-and-a-half-twelfths, but 

 the meatus transverse and narrow ; nostrils basal, direct, 

 linear, four-and-a-half-twelfths long. The feet are slender, 

 of moderate length ; the tibia bare for rather more than a 

 third ; the tarsus with twenty-eight scutella. The toes are 

 short ; the first very small, elevated, with eight scutella ; the 

 second with twenty-two, the third with thirty, the fourth 

 tAventy-six. They are broad beneath and marginate ; the 

 outer connected with the third by a rather large basal web, 

 which runs out narrowing to the end of both toes ; the inner 

 web much smaller. The claws are very small, arched, com- 

 pressed, at the end convex and obtuse. 



The feathers of the head and neck are oblong and 

 blended ; of the body rather compact, ovate, and rounded. 

 The wings when closed reach to the tip of the tail, and are 

 long, narrow, and pointed ; of thirty quills ; the first longest 

 and very slightly curved, the other primaries rapidly gra- 

 duated ; the secondaries slightly incurved, obliquely rounded, 

 with a minute tip ; some of the inner much elongated, 

 tapering, but rounded. There are seven stiffish tertials s 

 concealed by the scapulars, which are long. The tail is 



