250 CHARADR1IDJE. 



browner and often mixed with grey on the forehead, and with a 

 narrow white border except on the occiput ; neck all round and 

 upper breast bluish ashy, separated from the broad black gorget 

 across the breast by another narrow white border ; upper back, 

 scapulars, and tertiaries light brownish grey, becoming more ashy 

 on the wing-coverts ; winglet blackish ; quills ashy brown, tips of 

 primaries darker, most of the primaries, and sometimes all, with a 

 white spot on the inner web near the end, greatly increasing in 

 size on the innermost primaries; all quills white at base, the outer 

 secondaries to a large extent : lower back and rump grey, upper 

 tail-coverts blackish ; tail-feathers *ashy brown, with dark wavy 

 cross-bars, all except the middle pair with a subterminal black 

 spot; outermost pair barred black and white on outer webs, and 

 with the barring on the inner webs almost obsolete ; lower surface 

 from middle of breast white. 



Young birds want the blackish brown of the head and the black 

 gorget. 



Bill and irides crimson ; legs pinkish grey (Godwin- Austen) legs 

 blood -red (Jerdon). 



Length 16 inches ; tail 4-5 ; wing 9-25 ; tarsus 1'9 ; bill from 

 gape 3 to 3 a 5. 



Distribution. Throughout Central Asia from Western Turkestan 

 to North China. r lhis bird inhabits the Himalayas from Kashmir 

 to Upper Assam, keeping to stream-beds at high elevations in 

 summer, and descending almost to the plains in winter. It has 

 also been obtained by Godwin-Austen in the Naga hills at a low 

 level in February and March. Quite recently a specimen has been 

 shot by Capt. Barton in the Afridi country, Afghan frontier. 



Halits, $c. This remarkable wader keeps chiefly to the beds of 

 n, ountain-st reams, and is found singly, in pairs, or in small flocks, 

 probably families, of about five or six individuals. I met with 

 scattered flocks of this kind in the interior of Sikhim, at 12,000 

 feet, in September. The food consists of insects and, it is said, 

 mollusca and Crustacea. Though .this species undoubtedly breeds 

 in the Himalayas about May, and is said to make its nest in a 

 hollow beside a stone or a stranded log, the eggs have never, so far 

 as I can ascertain, been described except from native information. 



Subfamily TOTANIN^. 



The Curlews, Godwits, Sandpipers, and Stints agree in having a 

 slender, generally rather lengthened bill, more or less richly 

 provided with nerves, and consequently endowed with a delicate 

 fcense of touch, an essential qualification when this organ is used 

 to search in mud and \\et sand for the annelids and other small 

 animals on which the bird feeds. This is far less the case with 

 Curlews and Sandpipers than with the Stints. All the genera of 



