244 NUMENIUS ARQUATA. 



of the most remarkable of our native birds, enlivening the 

 wild heaths in summer, and in winter giving interest to the 

 sands and muddy bays of the sea-shore. Its body is ovate, 

 and rather full ; its legs long and slender ; its neek also 

 long ; its head rather small, oblong, anteriorly rounded. The 

 bill is extremely long, slender, arched, tapering, blunt ; the 

 tip of the upper extending about two-twelfths of an inch 

 beyond that of the lower mandible, which is at the base a 

 little broader than the upper. Owing to the great thickness 

 of the mandibles, their internal cavity is reduced to a narrow 

 groove, which is not occupied by the tongue ; that organ 

 being very short, sagittate, tapering, grooved above, and 

 sharp-pointed. The throat is very narrow ; the oesophagus 

 eleven inches long, of nearly equal diameter throughout ; 

 the proventriculus oblong, an inch and a half in length, its 

 glandules cylindrical. The gizzard is elliptical, a little com- 

 pressed, two inches long, its muscles very thick, its radiated 

 tendons very large, measuring an inch across. The intestine 

 is four feet six inches long, at its upper part six- twelfths of 

 an inch in diameter, at the cceca three-twelfths. The rectum 

 is four inches long ; the cceca four inches and a quarter, 

 their diameter three-twelfths. 



The eyes are rather small, the diameter of their aperture 

 being four-twelfths. The nostrils are linear, pervious, placed 

 in the nasal membrane near the base. The aperture of the 

 ear measures four-twelfths across. The tibia has its bare 

 part reticulated with angular scales. The tarsus has for 

 two-thirds of its length anteriorly a series of twenty-six 

 narrow scutella, the upper part and the sides reticulated. 

 The fore toes are webbed as far as the second joint, the outer 

 web largest : the first toe with ten, the second with twenty- 

 five, the third with thirty-three, the fourth Avith twenty- 

 seven scutella. The claws are small, slender, arched, com- 

 pressed, obtuse. 



The plumage is soft, on the upper part of the head rather 

 compact, on the neck blended. On the fore part of the 

 back the feathers are longish, oblong, and rounded ; on the 

 rest of the back small and oblong ; on the lower parts also 

 oblong and blended. The tibiae are feathered nearly two- 



