410 BULLETIlSr 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Numenius ? Gray, Cat. Birds Tropical Is., 1859, 50 (Marianne and Gil- 

 bert Islands). 



Numenius phaeopus (not Scolopax phseopus Linnaeus) Schlegel, Mus. Pays-Bas, 

 V, no. 27 (Scolopaces), 1864, 93, part. 



Numenius australis (not of Gould) Dole, Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H., xii, 1869, 303 

 (Hawaiian Islands). 



N[umenius] tibialis Layard (E. L. and E. L. C), Ibis, 1882. 533 (Ansevata, New 

 Caledonia). — Tristram, Ibis, 1882, 534, 



Genus MESOSCOLOPAX Sharpe. 



Mesoscolopax a. Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxiv, 1896, 371. (Type, by 

 original designation, Numenius minutus Gould.) 



Medium-sized or rather large Scolopacidse (wing 180-215 mm.) 

 with the slender, slightly decurved, bill shorter than tarsus and first 

 phalanx of middle toe and much shorter tlian tail; hallux much 

 shorter than basal phalanx of middle toe, and primaries projecting 

 beyond distal secondaries much farther than distance from tips of 

 the latter to bend of wing. 



Bill slender, attenuated and slightly decurved distally, its narrow 

 tip very slightly expanded; exposed culmen sliorter than tarsus 

 and basal phalanx of nuddle toe, much shorter than tail; nostril 

 subbasal, longitudinally linear (slit-like) ; nasal groove distinct for 

 at least oasal half of maxilla, sometimes for two-thirds or more; 

 malar antia posterior to latero-frontal antia, the mental antia about 

 on line (vertically) with anterior end of nostril; frontal antia forming 

 a very slight indentation (angular or shallowly concave) at base of 

 culmen. Wing ample, pointed, the longest primary (outermost) 

 exceeding distal secondaries by much more than half the leugth of 

 wing; tertials elongated, subacuminate, but the longest falling far 

 short of tip of longest primary (not extending beyond fourth, some- 

 times not beyond sixth, primary, from outside); tarsus less tlian 

 twice as long as middle toe without claw, the acrotarsium trans- 

 versely scutellate, the pianta tarsi transversely scutellato in M. 

 minutus, usually with rather large hexagonal scales (but sometimes 

 more or less transversely scutellato) in J/, horealis; bare poition of 

 tibia as long as middle toe without claw, transversely scutellate before 

 and behind in M. minutus, witli small hexagonal scales in front and 

 larger ones behind in ^f. horealis; lateral toes decidedly sliorter tlian 

 middle toe, the outer slightly longer than the inner; hallux small, 

 decidedly shorter tlian basal phalanx of middle toe; interdigital 

 spaces wel)bed basally, the web between outer and middle toes 

 decidedly shorter than ])asal phalanges of those toes, that between 

 inner and middle toes still smaller (more dee])ly incised) ; all the 

 anterior toes with a more or less distinct lateral tumid mem])rane 

 (conspicuously developed in J/, horealis, indistinct in M. minutus). 



a Macros, middle; -\-Scolopax {aKoKbira^, a woodcock). (Richmond.) 



