450 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



opening, the flexible tip becoming bent and elevated. Be- 

 lieving this to be quite a new discovery, I tried a number of 

 experiments, and also made dissections of the heads and bills 

 of the Godvvits, One experiment was to wrap the bill with 

 thread to within an inch of its extremity, then to apply 

 pressure on the sides of the head just at the back of the bill : 

 the end of the upper mandible immediately became elevated, 

 and with some force. 



Returning to my home in New Haven, Connecticut, from 

 the Magdalene Islands, I procured specimens of the Wood- 

 cock {Philohela minor) and Wilson's Snii^e {Gallinaffo delicata) 

 and tried the same experiments as I did with the Godwits and 

 with the same results. I also examined Woodcock " borings,^' 

 and found that they seemed to be no larger round than the 

 circumference of the closed bill of the bird, which evidently 

 probes down into the mud, and then opens its bill at the 

 extremity to seize its food. 



In the summer of 1890 I was unable to go to the Magda- 

 lene Islands myself, but Dr. L. C. Sandford, of New Haven, 

 Conn., who had accompanied me on my trip the year previous, 

 kindly sent me four fresh specimens of Godwits' heads, which 

 1 dissected and examined with care, observing the sliding 

 movement in the upper mandible which causes its end to 

 become elevated. 



These observations were presented to the New York Aca- 

 demy of Sciences by the late W. P. Trowbridge, of Columbia 

 College, New York City, as I was not a member of the 

 Academy myself, a description and cut appearing in the 

 ' Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences ' 

 (vol. xi. p. 30), to which I beg leave to refer such of the 

 readers of ' The Ibis ' as are interested in this subject. 



Mr. Trumbull's observation upon the Woodcock was really 

 a direct confirmation of my discovery, and although I had 

 not then actually published the discovery, I had been con- 

 tinuing my observations on it for some time. 



It is indeed curious that observations have been made on 

 three so different species of the LimicolcE, and it is quite 

 fortunate that such has been the case, for it shows how 



