264 BIED8 OF AUSTRALIA. 



occasionally I saw solitary individuals on the margins of the 

 lakes inland." Those persons resident in Australia who are 

 conversant with our British birds will readily recognize the 

 well-known Summer Snipe, a bird which appears to be 

 almost universally distributed over the Old World. 



Its food consists of aquatic insects and very small-shelled 

 mollusks. 



It will be seen that I formerly regarded this bird as dis- 

 tinct from the Common Sandpiper of Europe ; but a more 

 careful and minute comparison induces me now to believe 

 that it is identical ; and, if so, the species is an inhabitant of 

 nearly every country of the world. It is very generally dis- 

 tributed over Africa from north to south ; and specimens 

 from China, Japan, and the Indian Islands are precisely like 

 those killed in the British Islands. 



In Europe this species makes its slight nest in a tuft of 

 rushes bordering a stream, in which it deposits its four large 

 pointed eggs. 



Th^ sexes are precisely alike in the colour of their plumage, 

 and but little difference exists in their size ; the young, on 

 the contrary, which are met with in greater abundance than 

 the adults, have the brown feathers of the upper surface 

 barred or freckled with darker brown. 



The adults have all the upper surface pale glossy or bronzy 

 brown, each feather crossed with irregular bars of dark brown, 

 bounded on either side by a narrow line of pale brown ; base 

 and tips of the secondaries white ; primaries very slightly 

 tipped with white ; centre tail-feathers pale glossy or bronzy- 

 brown, with a row of irregular- shaped spots of dark brown 

 along the margins ; lateral feathers white, crossed by irre- 

 gular blended bars of dark and pale brown ; under surface 

 white, with the exception of the sides of the chest, and the 

 shafts of the feathers of the front of the chest, which are pale 

 brown. 



Total length GJ inches ; bill 1-|^ ; wing 4|- ; tail 2 J ; tarsi 1. 



