218 COMMON TOTANUS. 



Islands, Japan,* and Java.f Mr. Jerdan states 

 it to be " found solitary in similar situations with 

 the last (T. ochropus), but not nearly so common." 

 We possess specimens from Southern Africa, Con- 

 tinental India, and Singapore. 



The bill is greenish-brown, paler and inclining 

 to yellow at the base and rictus. The upper parts of 

 the adult bird in the breeding state are hair-brown, 

 with a glossy lustre and greenish reflections, the 

 shaft of each feather appearing dark, and showing 

 on the wings, and sometimes on the back, narrow 

 transverse lines of a deeper brown. The throat, 

 chin, belly and vent, white, on the former with 

 minute spots of hair-brown ; the neck and breast 

 are greyish -white, streaked with hair-brown ; axil- 

 lary feathers white. In the tail, the centre feathers 

 are hair-brown ; the next pair show clouded bands 

 across, and are pale at the tips, while those on the 

 outside become more and more distinctly barred 

 with white and hair-brown ; in this they show a 

 difference from the same parts in the Spotted 

 Sandpiper, where the outer feathers, though barred, 

 are much more clouded, the outer feathers only 

 showing bars defined in the marking ; the tail, in 

 the Common Sandpiper, is also slightly longer and 

 more cuneated. In the young and winter plu- 

 mage, the wings and upper parts are considerably 

 broken up by dark bars near the tips of the fea- 

 thers, which are paler in some parts, inclining to 

 greyish-white. 



* Temminck. f Horsfield. 



