SCHINZ'S SANDPIPER. 363 



darker in the centre of each feather and lighter on their margins ; on the 

 lower portion of their back this darker color widening, predominates, 

 and becomes black, so that the tips of the feathers only are of the 

 general pale ashy color ; the upper tail-coverts are white, blackish 

 along the shaft and towards the margin of the outer vane : a whitish 

 stripe runs from the very origin of the bill over each eye ; the cheeks, 

 sides of the neck and breast are whitish streaked with ashy dusky along 

 the shaft of the feathers, giving these parts an obscurely lineated 

 appearance, the throat quite to the bill, and all the remaining under 

 parts are white, the bottom of the plumage being plumbeous, and a few 

 bands of that color appearing across the lower flank feathers. The 

 wings are four inches and a quarter long, with the tertials and scapu- 

 laries remarkably tapering and acuminate, shorter by a good inch 

 than the two first quill-feathers : all the wing-coverts are of the color 

 of the body, but a little darker, each having a pale gray margin, the 

 inner great coverts have a very pure white tip : the shafts of all the 

 quill-feathers are pure white at least for a good portion near the 

 centre : the primaries are blackish ash : the secondaries paler and 

 margined with whitish, the tertials are again blackish edged with pale 

 grayish : the under surface of the wing is of a silvery gray ; the under 

 wing-coverts white marbled with dusky. The tail is two and a quarter 

 inches long : the four lateral feathers each side are very nearly equal 

 in length, of a pale ash color margined and shafted with white : they 

 become gradually darker as they are nearer the centre, the fifth each 

 side is blackish ash, a trifle longer than those already described, and 

 has a very conspicuous pure white marginal tip on the inner web ; the 

 two middle surpass the others by a quarter of an inch, are somewhat 

 pointed and entirely blackish. The feet are blackish ; the naked 

 space above the heel half an inch ; the tarsus seven-eighths of an inch 

 long, and much longer than the middle toe, the toes are cleft at the 

 base ; the nails are blackish. As will easily be perceived the specimen 

 described is in the winter dress. 



This Sandpiper is well known to appear in a summer vesture analo- 

 gous to that of Tringa alpina at the same season ; but we have never 

 met with an American specimen in that state. 



In the full plumaged males the bill and feet are black : irides brown : 

 before the eye a small blackish patch surmounted by a white stripe 

 dotted with blackish gray. Head above, back and wing-coverts bright 

 rufous, the feathers with merely a black centre : colors not so bright 

 as in Tringa alpina : wings above blackish gray with black shafts ; 

 point of the primaries black, with white shafts : the ten middle tail- 

 feathers as well as their upper coverts are blackish : the lateral cine- 

 reous with their coverts white : the chin is white, the sides of the head 

 and hind neck are of a ferruginous gray: throat white, longitudinally 



