214 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
Length 18; wing 9; tail 3°5; tarsus 3°3,; bill from gape 
3°25. 
Distribution.—A very rare straggler in winter; has been 
obtained near Jaffna, and I believe that I once saw one near 
Hambantota. A winter visitor to India, commoner in the 
north, and unknown in Burma. Found all over temperate 
Europe, Africa, Northern and South-westera Asia, breeding in 
the north of its range. 
Habits —Generally found about mud flats and sand banks, 
in estuaries, or by the shores of salt lagoons. 
Sub-family Totanine. 
Curlews, Sandpipers, and Stints. 
A large sub-family, all the members of which are migrants, 
with a distinct summer and winter dress, visiting us in the 
winter months and breeding mainly in the far north. In 
some species, however, more or less numerous immature 
specimens loiter, 7.c., do not go north to breed, but remain in 
the Island during the summer months in a bachelor state 
and winter dress. 
The plumage is generally some shade of gray or brown 
above ; paler and often white underneath ; never pied, but 
often streaked. 
The bill is slender, usually long, and provided with well- 
developed nerves, giving the organ a keen sense of touch—a 
necessity for birds which obtain their food mainly by probing 
in mud and soft sand in search of worms or other similar small 
forms of life. This is especially the case with the Stints. 
No less than seventeen species are found in Ceylon, distri- 
buted among seven genera. These genera fall into two groups : 
those which have some trace of webbing at the base of the 
front toes and those which have none. To the former category 
belong five genera. The first of these, Nwmenius (the Curlews), 
fairly large birds with long curving sickle-shaped bills, gives 
us two species. T'olanus (the Sandpipers) is well represented 
in Ceylon by seven species, the smaller of which are so familiar 
to snipe shooters under the name of Snippets. The genus 
Limosa (Godwits), finds its way into the Ceylon list owing 
