800 



SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — LIMICOL^E. 



Not completely gregarious ; no such flights of Woodcock and true Snipe occur as are usually- 

 witnessed among Sandpipers and Bay-snipe; they inhabit bog and brake rather than open 

 waterside ; they cannot be treacherously massacred by scores, like some of their relatives ; they 

 are knowing birds, if their brains are upset, and their successful pursuit calls into action all the 

 better qualities of the true sportsman. There is but one species of Philohela, our own Wood- 

 cock, P. minor; one Moluccan Woodcock, Neoscolopax rochusseni; two Woodcock of the re- 

 stricted genus Scolopax, S. rusticula and -S'. saturata; and about 20 true Snipe of the genus 

 Gallinago. AnK)ng the latter the tail-feathers range from 12 to 2G in different species, though 

 14 or 16 is the usual number. In those with 20 or 20 several outer pairs (6 or 8) are narrow, 

 linear, and stiffish ; these birds are the Wire-tailed or Pin-tail Snipes, as G. stenura and G. me- 

 gala, both of Asia, the former with 26 rectrices, the latter with 20 ; they form the subgenus 

 Telmatias, according to some authors, the subgenus Spilum according to others. G. australiSf 



Fio. 550. — American Woodcock, about | nat. size. (From American Field.) 



the New Holland Sni[)e, has 18 rectrices, whereof two pairs are narrowed. The ordinary fan- 

 tailed species of Gallinago, with 14 or 16 rectrices are, like those just mentioned, exceptional 

 in this family in having but one large, deep emarginatiou of the hinder end of the sternum \ 

 but G. gallimtla, the Jack-snipe of Europe, with only 12 rectrices, conforms to the limicoline 

 rule of two pairs of posterior sternal emarginations, and is hence made type of a genus Lim- 

 nocryptes. The genus Gallinago (in a broad sense) is nearly cosmopolitan, and these Snipes, 

 are all distinguished from Woodcocks (Philohela, Scolopax, and Neoscolopax) by having the 

 markings of the head longitudinal instead of transverse. 



c The genus Macrorhamphus (including Pseudoscolopax) , containing our species, and one 

 other (31. or P. semipalmatns of Asia) has the bill exactly as in Gallinago, but differs from 

 typical Snipe in more pointed wings, differently proportioned legs, and especially basal webbing 

 of toes. It thus stands exactly between the Snipe proper and 



