SNIPES AND ALLIED SPECIES. 



361 



search the open sands unless at night, hut keep in conceal- 

 ment ; and when alarmed, sit close and motionless. When 

 surprised they do not run, hut spring on wing, and then 

 generally emit loud cries. They walk well, glide with ease 

 among the herbage, have a very rapid flight, alight abruptly, 

 feed by night apparently more than by day ; nestle on the 

 ground, and in a slight hollow, more or less lined or covered 

 with fragments of herbage ; lay four very large, pyriform 

 eggs, patched and spotted with dark tints. The young, 

 covered with dense parti-coloured down, presently leave the 

 nest, squat to conceal themselves, and soon begin to search 

 for their food. The females are larger than the males, and 

 seldom differ from them in colouring. The prevailing colours 

 are dusky, light red, reddish-yellow, and white, disposed in 

 bars and streaks. Their flesh is much esteemed, and greatly 

 superior to that of the Totaninse. 



The scrobiculation of the extremity of the bill, so obvious 

 in the birds of this family, and assumed by many writers as 

 distinctive of them, is not at all peculiar, but presents itself, 

 though less conspicuously, in many of the Tringinae and 

 Totaninse. 



Fig. 30. 



SYNOPSIS OF TUP: BRITISH GENERA AND SPECIES. 



GENUS I. SCOLOPAX. SNIPE. 



Bill about twice the length of the head, straight, slender, 

 compressed ; both mandibles grooved, and in their termina 1 



