126 A MANUAL OF THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
or chestnut, and the streaks and spots on the breast and sides of body are paler in 
colour and smaller in size. 
Immature-—Somewhat like summer-plumage ; head with broader brown tips, 
feathers on back dark brown but with faint white tips; coverts with white tips, 
primaries and tail-feathers with white tipping; very pale brownish spotting on 
breast and flanks, a few elongated streaks on latter; no chestnut on back, and 
much darker than winter-plumage ; bill weal. 
Nestling, Nest and Eqgs.—Appear to be undescribed. 
Distribution and forms.—KHastern Siberia to Japan, ranging in winter to 
Australia, hitherto chiefly from the northern parts, but recently recorded by Alexander 
from the southern coast of South-west Australia. No subspecies are known. 
Genus PLATYRHAMPHUS. 
Platyrhamphus Billberg, Synops. Faun Scand., Vol. I., pt. u., Aves, tab. A and p. 172, 1828. 
Type (by monotypy): Numenius pusillus Bechstein = Scolopax falcinellus Briinnich, cf. 
Austral Av. Rec., Vol. II., pts. 2 and 3, p. 41, Oct. 23rd, 1913. 
Limicola Koch, Syst. baier. Zool., p. 316, July 1816. Type (by monotypy): Limicola 
pygmea = Scolopax falcinellus Briinnich. 
Not Limicula Vieillot, Analyse nouv. Ornith., p. 56, April 1816. 
Falcinellus Kaup, Skizz. Entwick.-Gesch. Nat. Syst., p. 37, pref. April 1829. Type (by 
monotypy): Tringa platyrhyncha Temminck = S. falcinellus Briinnich. 
Not of Vieillot, Analyse nouv. Ornith., p. 47, 1816. 
Smallest Waders with very long broad bills, long wings, medium tail, short 
legs and feet. 
The culmen is very long, broad, from the middle flattened and with the tip 
decurved ; the groove in the upper mandible becomes obsolete in the terminal 
half, due to this flattening ; the culmen is much longer than the tarsus which is 
again longer than the middle toe. 
The wings are long and narrow with the first primary longest. The tail is 
more than one-third the length of the wing, and is doubly emarginate like that of 
Pisobia. The metatarsus is short, regularly scutellate both in front and behind ; 
it is not much more than two-thirds the length of the culmen, and nearly half as 
long again as the middle toe. The feet are small, the middle toe being much shorter 
than the metatarsus ; short hind-toe present. 
87. Platyrhamphus falcinellus—BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPER. 
[Scolopax falcinellus Briinnich, Ornith. Boreal., p. 49, (pref. Feb. 20th) 1764, ex Pontoppidan, 
Der Danske Atlas, Vol. I., p. 623, pl. xxv1., 1763: ‘‘ Sielandia,’’ Europe. Extra-limital.] 
Mathews, Vol. III., pt. 3, pl. 165, Aug. 18th, 1913. 
Limicola sibirica Dresser, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1876, p. 674, Oct. Ist: China. 
Limicola falcinellus rogersi Mathews, Austral Av. Rec., Vol. III., pt. 4, p. 70, July 21st, 1917: 
Melville Island, Northern Territory. 
DisTRIBUTION.—Winter visitor to Northern Australia, breeding in the northern hemisphere. 
Adult male (winter) —General colour above ash-grey with dark shaft-lines and 
white fringes to the feathers, some of the feathers on the upper back black, margined 
on the sides with ferruginous, like some of the long scapulars ; bastard-wing and 
lesser marginal wing-coverts sooty-brown ; median coverts brown with darker 
shaft-lines and fringed with white, greater coverts similar but paler and inclining 
to ash-grey ; primary-coverts blackish; primary-quills dark brown with white 
shafts, paler on the inner webs and inclining to white towards the base ; secondaries 
pale brown, margined with white and with more or less white at the base ; some of 
