BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 437 



Plumage and coloration. — Plumage of head, neck, and under parts 

 dense, gull-like. Under parts, sometimes head and neck also, 

 usually also scapulars, immacu ate white; upper parts mostly black 

 or dusky; head and neck sometimes cinnamomeous, at least in part 



Range. — Temperate portions of North America, Europe and Asia, 

 northern xXirica, Australia, and Peruvian Andes. (Five species, of 

 which only two are American.) 



KEY TO TUE AMERICAN SPECIES OF RECURVIHOSTRA. 



m 



a. Scapulars and tips of greater wing-coverts and secondaries white; longer tertialj 

 and tail pale gray; head and neck cinnamomeous in summer plumage; bill only 

 moderately recurved. (Temperate North America.) 



Recurvirostra americana (p. 437). 

 an. Scapulars and whole of wing and tail sooty blackish; head and neck pure white in 

 summer plumage; bill very strongly recurved. (Chilean Andes.) 



Recurvirostra andina (extralimital).'* 



RECURVIROSTRA AMERICANA Gmelin. 



AMERICAN AVOCET. 



Adults in summer (sexes alike). — Head (except anteriorly), neck, 

 and chest light cinnamon, passing into white on anterior portion of 

 head; outer scapulars, median interscapulars, rump, upper tail- 

 coverts, under parts of body (including under tail-coverts), proximal 

 secondaries, and broad tips to greater wing-coverts white; wings 

 (except proximal secondaries and distal half of greater coverts), 

 inner (proximal) scapulars and adjacent lateral interscapulars 

 brownish black; tail grayish white or very pale gray; axillars and 

 under wing-coverts white; bill black; iris brown;* legs and i'eet 

 light grayish blue. 



Adults in winter. — Similar to the summer plumage, but head, neck, 

 and chest white, tinged with pale bluish gray, especially on pileum 

 and hindneck. 



Young. — Similar to winter adults but hindneck tinged with light 

 cinnamon or tawny, primaries slightly tipped with whitish, and 

 scapulars, etc., tipped or transversly mottled with hght cinnamon or 

 tawny. 



Adult male.~Wn\g, 214.5-230 (222.4); tail, 79-90 (83.8); culmen, 

 75-97 (89.6); tarsus, 85-100 (91.3); middle toe, 38-46.5 (41.9).'= 



" Recurvirostra andina Philippi and Landbeck, Anal. Univ. Chile, xix, Nov., 1861, 

 131; Wiegmann's Archiv fiir Naturg., xxix, 1863, 121 (Parunicota, Chile, 16,000 ft.); 

 Taczanowski, Orn. du P4rou, iii, 1886, 384; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxiv, 1896, 

 334, 752. — Recurvirostris aruKna Ksirting, Ibis, 1874, 257, pi. 9 (monogr.). — Himantopus 

 andinus Seebohm, Ibis, 1886, 232; Geogr. Distr. Charadriidse, 1888, 286. 



b Not red, as stated by some authorities, 



c Ten specimens. 



