354 RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 



the tail-feathers furnish the specific characters. The number, shape, 

 and disposition of these afford a sure clue, as in Numenius it is the 

 rump, under wing-coverts, and long axillary feathers which are our 

 best guide to a knowledge of the species. Without this clue they can- 

 not well be distinguished, and those who undertake to make phrases 

 with this object in a group to which they have not the clue, will only 

 make pedantic nonsense, as is done every day. This very natural 

 group is called Talmatias by Boie, and Gallinago by the English. 



As for 3Iacroramphus, as we have observed, it forms the transition 

 to Totanus, which Avould be enough to show the impropriety of Boie's 

 course in considering the genus Scolopax as a family of itself. Tem- 

 minck's name of Becassine Chevalier is "peculiarly descriptive, and alone 

 contradicts his unjust censure of Dr. Leach's genus, a group whose 

 scientific characters were first laid down by our friend Mr. Say, though 

 he referred the species to Limosa. 



In its winter plumage the Red-breasted Snipe instead of the mottled 

 garb in which it is familiar, is of an uniform dusky-cinereous : the speci- 

 men lying before us is eleven and a half inches long and nineteen in 

 extent. The bill is two and a quarter inches long, of a dull greenish, 

 the tip is black, and obtains the strongly marked dorsal groove that so 

 well distinguishes a Scolopax from the allied genera. The prevailing 

 dusky-cinereous color extends over the head, neck and wing-coverts, the 

 back and scapulars being of a lighter dusky-cinereous, and each feather 

 darker on its margin and tip : a broad line from the upper mandible 

 passing over the eye, and the lower orbit, are white : between the eye 

 and bill is a dusky line ; the irides are brown : the cheeks, throat, and 

 upper portion of the breast are pale cinereous, each feather being mar- 

 gined with whitish : the lower part of the back, the rump and upper 

 tail-feathers are white, beautifully and closely fasciated with black : the 

 breast, belly and thighs are white, the sides being spotted and waved 

 with blackish : the lower tail-coverts are white with short black bands, 

 narrower than those of the upper parts. The wings are six inches long : 

 the lesser wing-coverts of the color of the body, but they ai*e margined 

 with whitish ; the middle and greater wing-coverts are darker with pure 

 white margins and a little white along the shafts : the primaries are plain 

 blackish-dusky, the inner one slightly edged with white : the seconda- 

 ries are broadly margined and narrowly shafted with white : the first quill 

 is longest, the shaft white : the under wing-coverts and long axillary 

 feathers are white, fasciated with black. The tail is two and a half inches 

 long, composed of twelve feathers, all full and rounded, the two middle 

 a little longer, and marked like the coverts already described, that is 

 white and densely fasciated with black bands. The feet are of a dull 

 green : naked space on the tibia one inch long : tarsus nearly one inch 

 and a half: middle toe without the nail hardly an inch: hind toe more 



