344 SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER. 



black, small and thick on the throat and breast, larger and thinner as 

 they descend to the tail ; legs a yellow clay color ; claws black. 



The female is as thickly spotted below as the male ; but the young 

 birds, of both sexes, are pure white below, without any spots ; they also 

 want the orange on the bill. These circumstances I have verified on 

 numerous individuals. 



Species IV. TRINGA SEMIPALMATA. 



SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER. 



[Plate LXIII. Fig. 4] 



This is one of the smallest of its tribe ; and seems to have been 

 entirely overlooked, or confounded with another which it much resembles 

 {Tringa pusilla), and with whom it is often found associated. 



Its half-webbed feet, however, are sufficient marks of distinction 

 between the two. It arrives and departs with the preceding species ; 

 flies in flocks with the Stints, Purres, and a few others ; and is some- 

 times seen at a considerable distance from the sea, on the sandy shores 

 of our fresh water lakes. On the twenty-third of September, I met 

 with a small flock of these birds in Burlington Bay, on Lake Champlain. 

 They are numerous along the seashores of New Jersey ; but retire to 

 the south on the approach of cold weather. 



This species is six inches long, and twelve in extent ; the bill is black, 

 an inch long, and very slightly bent ; crown and body above dusky 

 brown, the plumage edged with ferruginous, and tipped with white ; tail 

 and wings nearly of a length ; sides of the rump white ; rump and tail- 

 coverts black ; wing quills dusky black, shafted and banded with white, 

 much in the manner of the Least Snipe ; over the eye a line of white ; 

 lesser coverts tipped with white ; legs and feet blackish ash, the latter 

 half-webbed. Males and females alike in color. 



These birds varied greatly in their size, some being scarcely five 

 inches and a half in length, and the bill not more than three-quarters ; 

 others measured nearly seven inches in the whole length, and the bill 

 upwards of an inch. In their general appearance they greatly resemble 

 the Stints or Least Snipe ; but unless we allow that the same species 

 may sometimes have the toes half-webbed, and sometimes divided to the 

 origin, and this not in one or two solitary instances, but in whole flocks, 

 which would be extraordinary indeed, we cannot avoid classing this as 

 a new and distinct species. 



