The Snipes. 453 



barred with black and chestnut, and 

 notched with white on the outer web. 

 The chin is white. The sides of the head 

 and the throat are white, streaked with 

 brown. The foreneck and chest are 

 wood-brown, the feathers edged with 

 white. The remainder of the under 

 surface is white, barred with brown on 

 the sides of the body and breast. The 

 abdomen is white, and the under tail- 

 coverts only slightly barred. The axillaries 

 are diagonally barred with white and dark 

 brown. The under wing-coverts are regu- 

 larly and very distinctly barred with dark 

 brown and white. 



In young birds, the outer secondaries 

 are freckled with rufous near the tip, the 

 frecklings sometimes extending to the 

 inner primaries. The outer web of the 

 first primary is more or less freckled 

 between the web and the white margin. 



The sexes are of much the same size. 

 Length about i2|; wing about 65; 

 tail 2 1 ; bill about 2\. The bill is 

 yellowish brown, with the terminal third 

 black ; the irides are dark brown ; the 

 legs and feet are olive or greenish. 

 Weight up to 8 oz. The number of 

 tail-feathers varies considerably, and is 

 said to be as many as twenty-eight in 



