SPOTTED REDSHANK. 479 



and uucler tail-coverts pure white ; flanks slightly tinged and 

 streaked with ash-grey; legs and toes vermilion -red, claws 

 black. 



The adult bird in summer has the beak nearly black, but 

 the base of the lower mandible is dark red ; the irides dark 

 brown ; the eyelid white ; the whole of the head, and the 

 neck all round, sooty-black : back, scapulars, all the wing- 

 coverts, secondaries, and tertials, sooty-black, with well- 

 defined triangular spots of pure white along the margin of 

 the web of each feather, which is also tipped with white ; the 

 primaries black, with white shafts, but no white spots ; 

 breast and belly black, a few of the feathers with white 

 tips ; under wing-coverts white, with dusky-grey spots ; 

 axillary plumes pure white ; under tail-coverts barred black 

 and white ; legs and toes claret colour, paler at the joints ; 

 claws black. 



The sexes do not diff"er much in plumage, but the females 

 are rather larger than the males, and in the breeding 

 dress the chin is often white, and the under parts are of 

 a less uniform black. An adult male measured in its whole 

 length twelve inches and a half ; from the carpal joint to 

 the end of the wing, six inches and a half ; the first quill- 

 feather the longest in the wing. 



In young birds of the year the plumage on the upper sur- 

 face of the body is tinged with brown, and the white colour 

 of the under surface of the body is clouded with ash-grey ; 

 the legs orange-yellow. 



In the nestling the down of the forehead and under parts 

 is more tinged with buff than in the Common Redshank ; the 

 black on the crown is more extended, and the black streak 

 through each eye unites at the nape, the bill being propor- 

 tionately longer. 



