132. 
SCOLOPACIDA): TATTLERS. 637 
longer than head, straight, its tip not expanded, knobbed, nor notably sensitive; grooved 
about half its length only ; culmen not furrowed. Gape of mouth reaching beyond base of 
culmen. Bill much stouter than usual in Tattlers. Legs stout. Feet semipalmate, with 
decided web between inner and middle as well as outer and middle toes. Tarsus longer than 
middle toe and claw, scutellate before and behind. (General characters of Totanus at large, 
but bill and feet stout, latter bluish, and toes semipalmate. See fig. 49.) One N. Ain. species. 
S. semipalma’ta. (Lat. semipalmata, half-webbed. Fig. 444.) SEMIPALMATED TATTLER. 
Witter. Adult ¢ 9, in summer: Upper parts ashy, confoundedly speckled to greater or 
less extent with black- 
ish; this sometimes 
giving the prevailing 
tone, but in lighter col- 
ored cases the blackish 
restricted to an irregu- 
lar central field on each 
feather, throwing out 
angular processes and 
tending to become 
transverse bars. When 
such dark fields pre- 
jail, the upper parts 
become quite blackish, 
speckled with ashy- 
white, like Totanus 
melanoleucus, for ex- 
ample. Furthermore, 
there is oftena slight ru- 
fescence. Under parts 
white, sometimes with a rufous or brownish tinge, the jugulum and breast spotted and streaked, 
the sides barred or arrow-headed, with brownish-black. Avxillars and lining of wing, edge of 
wing and primary coverts, sooty-blackish. Primaries blackish, with a great space white at 
base, partly overlaid and concealed by the primary coverts, partly showing conspicuously as a 
speculum ; shafts white along this space. Most secondaries white; most upper tail-coverts 
white, the shorter ones dark like rump, the longer ones barred like tail. Tail ashy, incom- 
pletely barred with blackish ; lateral feathers pale, or marbled with white. Bill dark; legs 
bluish. It is evidently a mistake to describe the willet as merely gray and white. Length 
about 16.00; wing 8.00; tail 3.00; bill 2.25-2.75; tarsus the same; middle toe and claw 
1.67. @ 2 in winter, and young: Character of wing as before. Above, light ashy, nearly 
or quite uniform ; tail corresponding with this gray state ; upper tail-coverts white. Below, 
white, shaded with ashy on the jugulum, breast, and sides. Every stage occurs between the 
two here described. Temperate N. Am. at large, N. to 56° at least, but chiefly U.S.; breeding 
throughout its U. S. range, and resident in the Southern States. A large, stout tattler, known 
at a glance by its white-mirrored black-lined wings and blue legs, too plentiful for such a wary, 
restless, and noisy bird in marshes for the convenience of gunners, as its shrill reiterated cries, 
incessant when its breeding places are invaded, alarm the whole neighborhood. Breeds by 
pairs or in small companies in fresh or salt marshes ; nest a slight affair in a tussock of grass 
or reeds just out of the water; eggs 3-4, 1.90 to 2.12 X 1.45 to 1.55, average 2.00 X 1.50, 
less pointedly pyriform than usual in this family, brownish or buffy-olive or clay color, boldly 
and distinctly spotted and splashed with umber-brown shades, little massed at the great end, 
with the usual shell-markings. 
