

Snipe, Sandpipers, etc. 



Greater Yellowlegs 



(Totanus melanoleucus) 



Called also: BIG YELLOWLEG; TELLTALE OR TELLTALE 

 SNIPE; LARGE CU-CU; YELPER; TATTLER; STONE 

 SNIPE; WINTER YELLOWLEG; YELLOW SHANKS 



Length 13 to 14 inches. 



Male and Female Upper parts dark ashy speckled with white; the 

 head and neck streaked; the back and wings spotted; space 

 over eye and the throat white; tail dusky, with numerous 

 white bars; the white breast heavily spotted with black; sides 

 barred ; underneath plain white. (Winter and immature birds 

 have the upper parts more ashy or gray, and almost black 

 in summer, and the markings on sides and breast fade in 

 autumn.) Bill two inches long or over; long, slender, yellow 

 legs. 



Range America in general, nesting from Iowa and northern Illi- 

 nois northward, and wintering from the Gulf states to Pata- 

 gonia. 



Season Chiefly a spring and autumn visitor; April, May; July to 

 November. 



A "flute-like whistle, when, wheu-wheu-wheu-wkeu, wheu, 

 wheu-wheu," familiar music to the sportsmen in the marshes, tells 

 the tale of the yellowlegs' whereabouts ; and a responsive whistle, 

 calling down the noisy, sociable birds to the wooden decoys even 

 from a greater height than their bodies may at first be seen, or 

 bringing them running from the muddy feeding grounds to their 

 supposed friends, lures them close enough to the blind for a pot 

 shot. Consternation seizes the survivors; they fly upward and 

 jostle against each other; they dart now this way, now that, crying 

 shrilly as they blunder upward in a zigzag course; but calming 

 their fears as the whistle from behind the blind reassures and 

 entreats, down wheel the confiding innocents again, only to be 

 stretched beside their stiffening companions at a second discharge 

 of the gun. So this alleged sport goes gaily on through the 

 autumn, although no one on the Atlantic coast, at least, raves over 

 the sedgy flavor of the stone snipe's flesh, or often tries to give 

 a better reason for bagging the birds than that they frighten off 

 the ducks! In the west the flesh is more truly desirable. 



223 



