GRALLATORES. 255 



nearest approach before it will take wing. In its economy it 

 appeared to me to hold an intermediate station between the 

 Sandpipers and true Snipes. It is a bird especially fond of the 

 grassy sides of lagoons and open wet marshy places, where it 

 trips over the herbage which rests on the surface of the water, 

 and sometimes wades up to its body in search of insects. Its 

 flight resembles that of the true Snipes. Of the specimens 

 killed, by far the greater number were birds of the year, at 

 which period of their existence a rufous tint pervades the 

 breast and flanks ; the feathers of the back are also margined 

 with the same hue, except where they are varied with greenish 

 white, some of the feathers of the scapularies and back being 

 edged with this colour ; when fully adult, an almost uniform 

 grey pervades the upper surface, the centre of the abdomen 

 alone being white. 



I dissected a number of specimens and found the larger 

 ones to be males, a somewhat unusual circumstance in this 

 group of birds ; the Rufi", however, may be quoted as an 

 instance contrary to the usual law ; several of the males were 

 weighed, and averaged two ounces and three-quarters. 



The food consists of aquatic insects and their larvaR. 



All the feathers of the upper surface very dark brown in 

 the centre, gradually fading into grey on the margins ; crown 

 shghtly washed with rufous ; primaries brown with white 

 shafts ; under surface white, washed on the breast with grey- 

 ish brown, and where this tint appears, each feather has a 

 small streak of brown down the centre ; under tail-coverts 

 with a conspicuous streak of dark brown down the centre ; 

 bill olive at the base, becoming dark brown at the tip ; legs 

 yellowish olive ; irides black. 



The above is the description of an adult in winter plumage ; 

 the young of the year are similarly marked, but have the 

 greater portion of the feathers, and particularly those of the 

 crown and the tertiaries, distinctly margined with sandy red 

 and white ; tlie breast washed with buff. 



