TfiLL-TALE GOD WIT, OR SNIPE. 119 



Bay, continually nodding their heads; and were called there 

 Stone Curlews.* 



The Tell-tale, seldom flies in large flocks, at least during 

 summer. It delights in watery bogs, and the muddy margins 

 of creeks and inlets; is either seen searching about for food, or 

 standing in a watchful posture, alternately raising and lowering 

 the head, and on the least appearance of danger utters its shrill 

 whistle, and mounts on wing, generally accompanied by all the 

 feathered tribes that are near. It occasionally penetrates inland, 

 along the muddy shores of our large rivers, seldom higher than 

 tide water, and then singly and solitary. They sometimes rise 

 to a great height in the air, and can be distinctly heard when 

 beyond the reach of the eye. In the Fall, when they are fat, 

 their flesh is highly esteemed, and many of them are brought 

 to our markets. The colours and markings of this bird are so 

 like those of the preceding, that unless in point of size, and the 

 particular curvature of the bill, the description of one might 

 serve for both. 



The Tell-tale is fourteen inches and a half long, and twenty- 

 five inches in extent; the bill is two inches and a quarter long, 

 of a dark horn colour, and slightly bent upwards; the space 

 round the eye, chin and throat, pure white; lower part of the 

 neck pale ashy white, speckled with black; general colour of the 

 upper parts an ashy brown, thickly spotted with black and dull 

 white, each feather being bordered and spotted on the edge 

 with black; wing quills black; some of the primaries, and all of 

 the secondaries, with their coverts, spotted round the margins 

 with black and white; head and neck above streaked with black 

 and white; belly and vent pure white; rump white, dotted with 

 black: tail also white, barred with brown; the wings, when 

 closed, reach beyond the tail; thighs naked nearly two inches 

 above the knees; legs two inches and three quarters long; feet 

 four-toed, the outer joined by a membrane to the middle, the 

 whole of a rich orange yellow. The female differs little in plu- 



* Arrt. Zool. p. 468. 



