280 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



that for the purposes of incubation it betakes itself to the 

 interior of the country. 



The sexes are so precisely alike, that by dissection alone 

 can we distinguish the one from the other. 



Crown of the head brown, with a narrow irregular stripe of 

 buffy white down the centre ; lores and line behind the eye 

 brown ; line over the eye, neck, and breast buffy white, with 

 a brown line down the centre of each feather, the brown 

 colour predominating; centre of the back and scapulary 

 feathers dark olive, spotted on their margins with light buff; 

 wing-coverts the same, but lighter, and presenting a mottled 

 appearance ; primaries blackish brown, with light shafts ; 

 rump and upper tail-coverts barred with brown and white ; 

 tail pale brown, barred with dark brown ; chin, lower part of 

 the abdomen, and under tail-coverts white ; bill blackish 

 horn-colour, fleshy at the base ; feet greyish black. 



Total length 15 inches; bill 3; wing 9^; tail 3 ; tarsi 2^. 



Sp. 537. NUMENIUS MINOR, 3fuller. 



Little Whimbrel. 

 Numenius minor, Miill. Naturk. Verhand. Land- en Volkeukunde, 



p. no. 



minutus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, part viii. p. 176. 



Numenius minutus, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. vi. pi. 44. 



I killed a pair of this species out of a flock of about twenty 

 in number which w^as flying over the race-course at Maitland, 

 in New South Wales, on the 4th of April 1839. The flock 

 was constantly rising and flying round, sometimes to the 

 distance of a mile, returning again, alighting, and running 

 quickly over the ground much after the manner of the Plovers. 

 The above was the only instance in which the bird came under 

 my observation during my stay in the country, consequently 

 I am unable to state anything respecting its habits or the 



