SCOLOI'ACIU.l:; — 'I'lIE HNU'E FAMILY. 65 



and spotted and barred on the back, etc., with blackish; beneath, white, tinged with ashjr 

 on forenock and with buff along sides, the former, with jueulum, spotted with dusky, and 

 the latter barred with the same; upper tail-coverts white; tail ashy, more or less distinctly 

 mottled transversely with a deeper shade of the same: wing-coverts plain ash-gray; axil- 

 lars antl linins of wing plain sooty'black. Winter plnmage: Above, i)lain a^h-gray ; beneath, 

 immaculate dull white, the torenoek shaded with grayish. Yonnu: Above, brownish gray, 

 the feathers margined with pale oclu'aceous: sides much tinged with the same, and Huely 

 mottled transversely with grayish. Bill bhick; legs and feet gi-ayish. In life, "liill light 

 blue, dusky toward end; iris brown; feet light blue, claws black." (Audubon.) 



Total length, about 15.00-17.00 inches; e.xtent, 25.IK)-30.00; wing, 8.00-9.00; culmon. 2.30-2.00; 

 tarsus, 2.40-2.85; middle toe, 1.35-1.40. 



"The Willet," says Dr. Brewer, "is one of the most extensively 

 distributed of Nortli American birds. It is not only found along 

 the entire Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, and 

 along the entire Gulf coast, but is equally abundant on the 

 Pacific and through nearly all the marshy regions of the in- 

 terior; it also occurs throughout Central and South America 

 as far south as the Pampas, where it breeds in large numbers." 



"Mr. Nelson refers to this species as being a rare summer resi- 

 dent in the marshes anil on the wet praii'ies of noi'thwestern 

 Illinois, where it arrives the last of April, leaving by the first 

 of October. The same writer afterward found it abundant on 

 the shores of Salt Lake, in company with Avocets, where its 

 clamor made it a perfect nuisance to the sportsman. Captain 

 Bendire also noticed it as an abundant summer resident in 

 southeastern Oregon, where he procured several sets of its eggs, 

 which began to be laid about the 10th of May. These birds 

 were quite as abundant in the higher mountain valleys, at an 

 altitude of six thousand feet, as they were in the lower regions, 

 apparently fn^pienting all marshy localities. Dr. Bryant found 

 this to be an abundant species in the Bahamas, where it was 

 also resident, breeding in all suitable localities, and being 

 known as the 'Duck Snipe.'" (Bhewkk.) 



(lENUs BARTRAMIA Licsson. 



Uartrauiin Lesson, Traite d'Orn. Kll, .V^l. Type, ]i. lalicauda Le8S.,= 7'/ intfa longi- 

 canda liECBST. 



Cbab. Upper mandible Krooved laterally to within the terminal fourth, the lowor not 

 quite so far. Culmen concave to near the tip, whore it is sligiitly dccurvod ; gonys straight. 

 Mouth deeply cleft, almost as far back as the anterior canthus of the eye. The culmen only 

 about two thirds the commissure, shorter than the head or tarsus, and about equal to middle 

 loo, without claw. Feathers extending much farther forward on th? upper jaw than on the 

 lower, although those of chin reach nearly to I'nd of nostrils. Tarsus oni' and one half 

 times middle toe and claw; the bare part of tibia not quite equal to the middle too above; 

 outer toe unltoil at base as far as drat joint; wob of inner toe very short. Tall long, gradu- 

 ated, more than half the wings. 



-y 



