TTTE TEREK SANDPIPER. 107 



Genus TEREKTA, JSonap. 



748. TEREKIA CINEREA. 

 THE TEREK SANDPIPER. 



Scolopax cinerea, GMdcntt. X. Comm. So. Imp. Petrop. xix. p. 473, t. xix. Terekia 

 cinerea, Jm/. B. Ind. ii. p. G82 ; Drrwr, /tirt?* Eur. viii. p. 105, pi. ; Ilinm: 

 8. F, i. p. 237, ii. p. 296; Sakad. Ucc. Born. p. 330 ; Anuxtrt,,,;/. s. F. i\ . p. 341 ; 

 David ef Oust. Ois. Chine, p. 4GO ; Hume $ Dav. S. F. vi. p. 460 ; Hume, S. F. 

 viii. p. 112 ; Legge, Birds Ceylon, p. 836 ; Oaten, S. F. x. p. 239. 



Description. Winter plumage. The whole upper plumage greyish brown, 

 each feather with a darker shaft-stripe and some of the upper scapulars 

 blotched with blackish ; lesser and greater wing-coverts dark brown, the 

 latter tipped with white ; median coverts greyish brown like the back, 

 turning to darker brown near the edge of the wing; primaries dark brown, 

 the shaft of the first white ; secondaries brown, very broadly tipped and 

 margined interiorly with white ; tertiaries greyish brown with black shafts ; 

 tail brown mottled with grey and the outer feathers narrowly edged with 

 whitish ; lores brown ; a band above them whitish marked with brown 

 dots ; cheeks whitish streaked with brown ; chin and throat white ; ear- 

 coverts greyish brown ; sides of the neck and all but the central portion 

 of the breast greyish brown with dark shaft-streaks ; centre of the breast 

 albescent ; remainder of the lower plumage with the axillaries and most 

 of the under wing-coverts pure white. 



In summer the shaft-streaks on the upper plumage become more 

 developed, and most of the scapular feathers become nearly entirely black ; 

 the sides of the head, throat, fore neck and breast become very distinctly 

 streaked with brown on a pure white ground. 



Bill dark brown, yellowish at the base of the lower mandible ; iris brown ; 

 legs and toes yellow. 



Length 8*5 inches, tail 2'2, wing 5*1, tarsus I'l, bill from gape 1*6 to 

 nearly 2. The female is larger, but both sexes vary in size, especially in 

 the length of the bill, which in this species is curved upwards throughout. 



The Terek Sandpiper, Curlew Sandpiper or Pigmy Curlew, as it is 

 variously termed, appears to be spread over the whole Province in winter. 

 I found it rather abundant in the muddy creeks between the Pegu and 

 Sittang rivers ; Dr. Armstrong procured it in the Irrawaddy Delta, Mr. 

 Davison throughout Tenasserim, and Mr. Blyth in Arrakau. 



It occurs throughout Eastern Europe and Eastern Africa and over nearly 

 the whole of Asia, extending through the Malay archipelago to Australia. 

 It summers in Russia and Siberia. 



This curious Sandpiper is met with in flocks on mud-banks and swampy 

 tracts of country. 



