118 MANUAL OF PHILIPPINE BIRDS. 



thickly mottled with spots and bars of brown; upper tail-coverts barred 

 with brown and whitish, the brown bars somewhat irregular and not 

 coterminous; tail ashy brown, tipped with white, and crossed by regular 

 bars of dark brown, about nine in number ; center of crown whitish and 

 streaked with brown, remainder of crown dark brown, forming tw6 broad 

 bands and followed by a broad eyebrow of dull white and narrowly streaked 

 with small lines of blackish ; lores and upper margins of ear-coverts dark- 

 brown; remainder of sides of face and neck pale brown, streaked with 

 darker brown, cheeks somewhat whiter; chin and upper throat white, 

 with scarcely any brown spots; lower throat, breast, and sides of body 

 pale, rufescent buff, thickly clouded with longitudinal streaks of dark 

 brown on throat and breast; dark brown bars of a more or less sagittate 

 shape on sides of body and flanks ; abdomen and under tail-coverts white, 

 the latter with streaks and bars of dark brown; under wing-coverts and 

 axillars white with broad dusky brown bars, very distinct on the latter. 

 'Bill blackish, dark brown at base of lower mandible ; feet dark lead-color ; 

 claws black; iris very dark brown.' (Taczanowski.) Length, 380; cul- 

 men, 76 ; wing, 223 ; tail, 96 ; tarsus, 55. 



"Adult female in breeding plumage. Similar to the male. 



"Young birds may always be distinguished by the more mottled ap- 

 pearance of upper surface, most of the feathers being spotted on both 

 webs with whitish or pale, rufescent buff ; lower back and rump plentifully 

 mottled with spots of dusky brown, and innermost secondaries very dis- 

 tinctly notched with rufescent buff; streaks on throat and breast and bars 

 on flanks almost as plentifully developed as in the adult ; bars on axillars 

 often very incomplete, and, in rare instances, absent. 



"The differences between this race and the whimbrel (N. phceopus) 

 of Europe are not so strongly pronounced in all cases as to render the 

 determination of specimens always a matter of certainty. Some of the 

 Philippine specimens, for instance, are very difficult to separate from 

 European examples, and many others also appear to be intermediate be- 

 tween the two forms." {Sharpe.) 



The above descriptions of the adult male and of the young are slightly 

 modified from Sharpe's descriptions of Numenius phaopus of which the 

 eastern whimbrel is but a subspecies. 



The eastern whimbrel is much smaller than either of the two preced- 

 ing species and usually it may be killed with little trouble. In the 

 vicinity of tide-flats at high water it often congregates in flocks, but as 

 the feeding grounds become exposed the individuals scatter to various 

 parts following the receding tide. In length the male is about 420 ; wing, 

 205 ; tail, 100 ; exposed culmen, 82 ; tarSus, 53 ; middle toe with claw, 4-1 . 

 Wing of female, 240; tail, 110; exposed culmen, 79; tarsus, 60. 



